The Women’s Pages

by Victoria Purman

  I recommend Michael Duffy and Nick Hordern’s World War Noir: Sydney’s unpatriotic war (NewSouth, Sydney, 2019) for a glimpse into that city’s seedy wartime underworld.

  A special thank you to Carole Worthy. We met in Brisbane when I was on book tour with The Land Girls and she shared her own personal interest in the sinking of the Montevideo Maru—an event in Australia’s history I had just begun researching. She introduced me to Andrea Williams of the Papua New Guinea Association of Australia and both women helped fill in the blanks for me about the families who were left behind when so many Australians tragically lost their lives on the ship.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks once again to my family for supporting, feeding and watering me in the darkest depths of my deadline when it seemed, as Douglas Adams once described, it might go whooshing by.

  To the best friends a gal could ever ask for—Debbie, Peter, Sally, Andrew, Anita and David—who patiently waited while I wrote this book and took me at my word when I said that one day I would come out to play again.

  Thanks to Mark Corcoran for his insider’s tour of Potts Point and Kings Cross.

  I am indebted to Sarah Tooth for having the foresight to buy a secondhand bookshop at the exact moment I needed all kinds of old and unusual books for research.

  At HarperCollins, thanks once again to Jo Mackay (something about the wind beneath my wings comes to mind) and to Annabel Blay for your eagle eye (glad I made you cry—in a good way). To Sue Brockhoff and James Kellow, I can’t thank you enough for your continuing support, and a million thanks to the design team and sales team who make my books look beautiful and ensure they’re on shelves all over the country.

  The women war correspondents of the 1940s (and all those who had come before them) broke new ground, not just for themselves but for women everywhere. I studied journalism and began my career in the 1980s and I knew nothing of their place in our media history. I hope The Women’s Pages sheds some long overdue light on them and their tenacity to report the truth when the hurdles seemed insurmountable. Women in the media have come a long way but there are so many battles to be won. I take my hat off to my former colleagues, those I admire from afar and those starting out their careers, all of whom continue to push new boundaries each and every day.

  ISBN: 9781489273963

  TITLE: THE WOMEN’S PAGES

  First Australian Publication 2020

  Copyright © 2020 Victoria Purman

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