Notes

200 p.

A Woolshed Press book.

Summary: Set in Western Australia, this is a poignant and revealing tale of one family's experience and response to war and its aftermath, the Spanish Influenza. Told from two points of view, 12 year old Nell and her returned soldier father whom she barely knows. Nell wakes up in hospital; her last memory is of being consigned to the Death Train, from which, school lore insists, no-one returns. During the trip home from the isolation hospital where, against all expectations, she has recovered, she and her father each recall the past eight months from when the Armistice was declared to the moment Dad finally reached home, a homecoming delayed by the closure of the port of Fremantle due to an influenza related strike. On the same day the boat is unable to dock, Nell's mother takes the decision to hide the fact that her son has contracted the flu, the terrible consequences of which will haunt her and change the family forever.
lower age: 0