Penguin, 1995.
'I don't think we meant them to be secrets. But they come out as that now...only because they haven't revealed them before.' When the men left to figh in World War Two, young women were left to not only produce food and munitions but also to keep family together and provide love and support. Others served overseas themselves. To carry on, many women had to bury the distress and emotion of the war and its changes. Now in their seventies and eighties, the women in War Stories are ready to tell the true story of their war years, many for the first time. They tell of the agony of losing husbands - and lovers - in battle. Of the shame and confusion of having sex under pressure and getting pregnant. Of community prejudice against having an affair with an American soldier. Of bringing up children on their own and suffering from the double standards of the time. And of the boys coming home, and nothing being the same, of struggling to pretend that things were 'normal.' The often startling personal stories in this book are based on a moving cinema documentary film by Gaylene Preston...