June Guest Speaker: Joan Fisher and Pam Bayfield
Pam is a self published author who was approached by Joan to help Joan write her story. Two hundred and fifty people attended their book launch at Narrabeen. Two hundred copies of the book were sold.
Joan's parents met in England but her father was originally from Australia. He took his new family back to Australia in 1912. Joan had two older siblings and, unfortunately, Joan's mother died when Joan was quite young. One of her older sisters who had been working as a nanny to a rich and influential family in the Blue Mountains, had to give up her job and return to the family after the death of her mother to look after the younger children.
Joan's father took his children on a trip to New Zealand during the 1930's when Joan was about 15 years old. This gave her a taste of sea travel that Joan would experience later during the war.
When war was declared in 1939 Joan was studying to become a dressmaker and tailor. She interrupted her studies to become a VA. She was a nurse with the Red Cross and helped prepare the opening of Kenmore Hospital. She was chosen from among the nurses working with the Strathfield branch of the Red Cross at the time to serve on the Dutch ship Oranje which was offered to the Australian and New Zealand governments as a hospital ship. Once on board, Joan volunteered to help the occupational therapist on the ship who taught weaving to the patients to help them recover their co-ordination. This was the beginning of Joan's interest in weaving.
The ship travelled to Aden to pick up wounded soldiers and then down the east coast of Africa to Durban where Joan and her colleagues nursed casualties from Tobruk and north Africa.
Joan made many great friends during this time, in particular, her orderly George Ottwell. With the sister in charge of them both, they formed a tight team. In South Africa during visits ashore, Joan was appalled at the way non-whites were treated by the white minority.
Returning to the antipodes by way of New Zealand, as the west coast of Australia was constantly patrolled by enemy submarines, the Oranje had to sail through the southern ocean, something for which it was ill-equipped, but somehow managed.
By 1942 the Japanese posed a great threat to Australia and the war in the Pacific was reaching its peak. Many of Joan's colleagues from the Oranje had been transferred to the Centaur by this stage and when it was sunk she lost many great friends including her favourite orderly, George. Joan has recently been contacted by George's sister-in-law and still remembers him very fondly.
Back in Sydney Joan had to go through Army training as the nurses were taken into the military. This meant giving up their attractive blue uniforms for army khaki, something which did not please Joan at all. Casualties from New Guinea and the Pacific were looked after at a tent hospital in the Atherton Tablelands and Joan had experience here as well.
At the end of the war Joan was stationed on the island of Morotai near Borneo and saw some of the most horrendous cases of her career among the ex-prisoners of war who had been held by the Japanese. Although the war was over there was a great deal of work to be done in the area.
Eventually Joan returned to Sydney and had to adjust to civilian life. At a friend's wedding she met the man who would become her husband - he proposed to her after 4 days! They were separated for 6 months but wrote to each other frequently and eventually married and Joan then became a school teacher's wife. She was soon roped in to teach the children sewing and other crafts and her love of weaving grew. Joan helped establish the Fairfield Weavers and Spinners Group and became a well known weaver, felter and craftswoman.
Joan has done a great deal of community work over the years including talking to students about her experiences during the second World War. She feels it is very important to tell people about the tragedy and waste of war as well as the comradeship and heroic tales of survival.
Now 90 years old, Joan Fisher is a glowing example of how to live life to the full and enjoy many aspects of it. It was an absolute pleasure and inspiration to hear just a small amount about this amazing woman's life.