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It must have been on the following morning when I heard the sound of marching feet. Our room overlooked the garden and entrance gate, and there, going past on the road, was a long column of very smartly dressed American troops — what a wonderful sight — and my spirits rose considerably. The Japs were going to have a fight if they tried to take Australia. The country had no fit young men left, having sent them all to the Middle East and Malaya.

In the afternoon we had a visitor — evidently news of us had spread among the cousins, and Joan came along to invite us to stay with her parents in the ‘outback’ on their sheep station, which was being managed by her rather frail elderly father. His son was away with the forces in North Africa. She took us in the antique Daimler about 20 — 30 miles out of Ballarat along a sandy road, with the dust rising behind us and dried up paddocks each side, with the odd patch of gum trees, and we arrived at a fairly spreading bungalow — still of timber and corrugated iron, and were given a marvellous welcome by ‘Aunt Daisy and Uncle Jim’ and so began our sojourn in Australia. It was March 1942.

Life went on quietly at Chepstowe, but I found myself suffering from a sort of delayed shock and had to fight against deep depression. The cousins were so good and understanding and I settled down gradually to station life — lamb chops for breakfast, which were singed over the open fire and lamb and tea for the rest of the day, with Aunt Daisy’s delicious home made butter and thick cream from the Jersey house cow.

Jonathan began to look a bit like an Aussie child and Joan found him her antique doll’s pram and small wheelbarrow which he used to wheel around Aunt Daisy’s garden. She adored him, and he was thoroughly spoilt. A month or two after we arrived, a policeman called from the local village, Snake Valley, to say he had a communication from ‘Irving Bell’ — very exciting, but it was only a message from Roy’s brother, with the forces in Italy, to say he would do whatever he could to get news of Roy. I really knew that this would be impossible, but it was a very kind thought

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