A respectable profession – nursing in Australia

Traces: Your book features many great tragedies, especially over the war years, and reading the story of Vivian Bullwinkel and her fellow nurses who suffered at the hands of the Japanese soldiers was terribly sad. What other stories of heroism inspired you?

: I was inspired by so many of the stories I discovered. I especially appreciated those that emphasised the competence, ingenuity and self-reliance of Australian nurses. One example is from 1915; a small group of Australian nurses was deposited on a bare hillside on