An Amazing Woman

About a month ago I met Sheila. She is a lady in her 80s who was a Lieutenant in the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service in World War 2. Sheila was in charge of hospitals in New Guinea and has preserved her experiences in a fabulous book called The Lieutenant and the Tin Trunk. Based on her memories and the diary that she kept and interspersed with photographs from the locations where she worked, this is a treasure. The book is written in a style that takes the reader right up to some of the experiences that Sheila had. Sheila’s account doesn’t focus on the traumas (and there were plenty) but reveals the good humour, care and decency that she and others brought to this unprecedented challenge in their lives. The necessity of ‘making the best of it’ meant appreciating the simplest pleasures- swimming, dances, food parcels from home, occasional picture shows in the rain, rides on boats and daring trips into the hills. The value of friendship is at the highest level. To meet Sheila now is a pleasure. The same charm and intelligence that saw her ‘do her duty’ with such evident success as shown in her memoirs, shines through. It is humbling to know that her generation gave so much so selflessly and so effectively.