For teachers
1. Download Teachers Notes (PDF)
2. Questions for class discussions
4. Books/articles Elizabeth Honey used for research
Questions for class discussion
In the course of researching and writing this book, Elizabeth Honey and Heike Brandt had to tackle the following questions. These could also be used as the basis of classroom discussion.
Writing
What are the advantages and disadvantages of corresponding through emails today compared to the letter-writing in the past?
Religion
How did religion in the past influence people's lives? How does it affect our lives now?
History
What was Australia like in 1913 to 1916?
World War 1
What was Australia like when it went to war for the first time?
Is it possible for us to imagine the time when Australia had such close links with Britain?
What happened to young men who didn't join the army? How were they treated?
Places Elizabeth Honey visited for research
The Shrine of Remembrance, St Kilda Road, Melbourne
To research Gilly Kneebone Elizabeth visited the Shrine on Anzac Day where she talked to Mrs Dingle from the Light Horse & Field Artillery Museum in Nar Nar Goon about nurses in the Boer War and World War 1. She recommended two books:
- Women in Grey
- Guns and Brooches
The Immigration Museum, Old Customs House, 400 Flinders Street, Melbourne
Elizabeth went here to research the Schmidt’s voyage. She saw 'The Log of Logs', a catalogue of ships logs and diaries and letters, everything written from any voyage in Australian or New Zealand waters from 1788 to 1993.
State Library of Victoria, 328 Swanston Street, Melbourne
This is a wonderful resource where Elizabeth found out about Amalie Dietrich, read newspapers of the time and in the Children’s Literature Collection found The Victorian Reading Book.
Books/ Articles Elizabeth Honey used for research
A Diary without Dates by Enid Bagnold, 1917
This short, readable book is a moving and very real account of Enid's time as a nurse in an English hospital during World War 1. (Enid Bagnold wrote the classic National Velvet.)
The Awful German Language by Mark Twain
His astute observations of that language first published in 1880 are as fresh and funny as ever.
Australia, Willkommen. A history of the Germans in Australia by Jürgen Tampke & Colin Doxford. NSW University Press 1990
The Hard Road: The Life Story of Amalie Dietrich, Naturalist
Going It Alone. Australia’s National Identity in the Twentieth Century by W.F.Mandle
Elizabeth took a couple of quotes from this book which have stayed with her:
‘Australia came to nationhood during the years of the war. It perceived its differences from others more readily, and examined its own nature more closely even if that involved much bitterness.’
‘Two conscription campaigns helped to make Australia a nation, for they forced it into an unusually searching and articulate self-examination.’
The Age, 23 October 2005, article by Geoffrey Blainey, 'The forgotten fears that sent a young man off to sea'
Geoffrey Blainey wrote about 'the perils of our geography', following the death of Evan Allan, Australia's last World War 1 veteran.
