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The Audiobook PodcastDiction FrictionWelcome back to another episode of The Audiobook Podcast.We’ve touched loosely on the subject of diction in earlier conversations, but werealise that what we said was fairly general. We’d mentioned casting people towork within the normal range of their voice, and that forced diction can soundforced!In this episode, Justine is in conversation with Geraldine Cook-Dafner, who holdsa Licentiate in Voice and Speech from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama inLondon, and additional training at the Royal Shakespeare Company and we think...
2025-07-0153 min
Dispatches from the FrontlinePrologue: Who was Sister Nan Reay and why is her story so significant in 2022?"Einstein was right – time really is relative. Weeks feel like years and also like minutes at the same time"Dispatches from the Frontline brings you podcasts from the diary of World War 1 nurse. At the same time, they also are a recording of how three artists re-directed their creative energies at home, on rehearsing on zoom and recording and editing on audacity during Melbourne’s lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic.The Great War lasted four years (1914-1918). Everyone thought it was going “to be over by Christmas”. At the beginn...
2022-07-0909 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 1: 19th August to 3rd September, 1914Nan Reay arrived in England, from Australia, in December 1912 with her mother Lucinda (Louie) and sisters Millie, Beatrice, Amy and Alice. She then nursed privately in London until the outbreak of war in 1914. When war was declared she immediately put her name forward to join the war effort and was recruited to join the Australian Voluntary Hospital (AVH) established by Lady Dudley in England. Lady Dudley raised the funds and established the AVH in a remarkably short time in August 1914 to give expatriate Australians in Britain the opportunity to support the war. By August 27th...
2022-07-0815 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 2: 4th September to 13th September, 1914Due to the advance of the German army, the Australian Voluntary Hospital is established at St. Nazaire instead of Le Havre. Nan Reay arrives on the 6 September and noticing St. Nazaire to be a little cleaner than Le Havre, sets to work with her colleagues to get everything ship shape at headquarters.We are introduced to Gabriel, (Ida Gabriel) Nan’s Australian friend with whom she had sailed back to Australia in 1913 after accompanying a ship load of migrants from England to Australia in 1912. Nan Reay is comforted by meeting Melbourne Hospital colleagues and friends who hav...
2022-07-0818 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 3: 14th to 18th September, 1914In this episode Nan provides us with more information about the people she is working with and specific details of the soldiers’ injuries and treatments. She writes about a conversation she had in French with a local driver, his attitude to “les allemands blesses”, the “German wounded” and how they will “finish them off”. After the entry for 14 September where she describes the work of the orderlies, she has handwritten: “These men all joined the fighting units soon after and several were killed on the Somme”. Nan Reay would have written this comment as a postscript. The Battle of the So...
2022-07-0818 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 4: 19th to 22nd September, 1914In this episode, we gain insight into many aspects of Sister Nan Reay. She provides more details about the wounded and the living conditions in the nurses’ quarters. We hear how she manages when other nursing sisters are ill, her moments of assertiveness and her moments of empathy and sorrow.When she refers to the padre, Mr.Sheppard, Nan Reay writes his full name in the margin: Mr. Sheppard, Canon Sheppard, St. Martins-in-the Field, London.“Lay Down Your Arms” was a novel written by Baroness Bertha Von Suttner, a peace activist. World...
2022-07-0814 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 5: 23rd September to 29th September, 1914No two days or nights the same. Nan Reay is only about six weeks into her work at the AVH hospital. The medical staff anxiously spend their time receiving and evacuating the wounded and her life is full of constant adjustments to the incessant “rush” that brings wounded soldiers to the clearing hospital.A man’s chances depend on how quickly his wound is treated. Oh, but the joys of the Grand Hotel and a trip into the country! A welcome respite for Sister Reay and her friends and colleagues.Nan Reay’s entries ar...
2022-07-0813 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 6: 30th September to 3rd October, 1914Nan Reay has been at the base hospital in St. Nazaire for three weeks. She has been told that they have had over 650 patients during that time. We are introduced to Major Studdy and Colonel L’Estrange Eames, her Australian O.C – Officer in Command. Too old to be recruited into the Australian Imperial Forces at the age of 51, Col L’Estrange Eames, was recruited by Lady Dudley to the AVH. The British War Office only accepted the hospital on the understanding that a man holding a Royal Army medical commission should be put at the head of it, and th...
2022-07-0814 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 7: 4th October to 12th October, 1914Nursing in World War 1 was often exhausting, relentless and sometimes disgusting. Nan Reay’s entries in this episode describe the difficult living conditions the nurses had to endure. Despite her weariness due to lack of sleep, she is still able to enjoy the little excursions beyond base camp.Rumours also abound and the nurses must be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice. Who knowswhere?World War 1 Timeline for Episode 7On the 5 October 1914 the first German aircraft was shot down by an Allied plane, the Voisin V. This plan...
2022-07-0816 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 8: 13th to 18th October, 1914The image of a World War 1 nurse in a starched white apron and cap is one which dominated the records of female nurses after the war. Civilians would have seen the impossibility of maintaining such an image in the conditions under which they worked, if the writing of these women had been publicised immediately after the war. In this episode Nan Reay again details the severe living conditions under which nurses had to exist. However, the necessity to always be prepared to pack, to move, to set up camp elsewhere at a moment’s notice doesn’t det...
2022-07-0812 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 9: 19th to 20th October, 1914In this episode Nan Reay explains the “drill” for setting up a dressing station and the ferrying of men from the front line to the dressing stations and from there to the clearing hospitals. These drills were conducted like military operations. Amidst all this, Nan manages to do some shopping!“Bivouacs” – a temporary shelter often with open sides or sometimes made with natural materials such as bracken etc. Medical staff were forced to sleep outdoors at dressing stations, and their equipment sometimes did not arrive for a further three weeks. Nurses worked in tents in primitive conditions...
2022-07-0811 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 10: 21st to 25th October, 1914Shampoos, luncheons, baths and some unexpected visitors. The desire to write about normal things seizes Nan Reay in these diary entries. She chats to French children and their mothers on her excursions from the camp and never misses an opportunity to practise her schoolgirl French for which she received an honours prize at Tintern Grammar in Melbourne.Nan Reay stuck postcards of the town of Pornichet in her diary alongside these dates.World War 1 Timeline for Episode 10The First Battle of Ypres(19 October-22 November 1914) was a significant battle because the Allied...
2022-07-0811 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 11: 26th to 29th October, 1914A frenzied packing up and moving on to the next AVH base. This episode reveals the frustration and anxiety which was to become part of Nan Reay’s life. Of course, at this stage she has no idea how long this was to last. After many false starts the journey begins north from Rouen, through Abbeville, Eu and finally to Boulogne. She is getting closer to the Somme but still has time to soak up the beautiful countryside of western France and paints an image of a serene autumnal landscape occasionally interrupted by the sight of French soldiers. ...
2022-07-0817 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 12: 30th October, 1914The final diary entry for 29 October reads: “We were all working at high pressure because we knew there was fierce fighting, and wounded might come at any moment”. It is 1914 and we are half way through the podcasts. There is a gap from this entry on 30 October until 1916. The absent pages are a mystery to Nan Reay’s family.We can only surmise that either, she didn’t write her diary during that time because of the thousands of wounded arriving from the Somme or, the pages were lost in the many frenzied movement orders she had to f...
2022-07-0804 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 13: July, 1917The diary begins again in 1917. Movement orders arrive for Nan Reay but at first, there is little certainty as to which hospital she is to be sent to. Finally, she embarks upon an eventful journey and has her first encounter with “Fritz” and his bombing raids.The Casualty Clearing Station (CCS) was part of the casualty evacuation chain, further back from the front line than the Aid Posts and Field Ambulances.The job of the CCS was to treat a man sufficiently for his return to duty or, in most cases, to enable him to be evac...
2022-07-0810 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 14: 11th September to 30th October, 1917Picking up her kit again, Nan Reay moves on to Casualty Clearing Station 36, also situated not far from the port of Dunkirk and she becomes part of a theatre team where her skills and expertise are put to good use.These Casualty Clearing Stations are nestled amongst the dunes, autumn is giving way to a cold and frosty winter and heavy enemy bombardment is almost a daily occurrence.“Butterflies” - cluster bombs“Nose-cap” – bomb shellWorld War War 1 Timeline for Episode 14The major battle that took place during these diary entr...
2022-07-0814 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 15: 31st October to 25th December, 1917This episode covers one of Nan Reay’s longer diary entries. The bombs are very near now and the barrage of anti-aircraft guns constantly sweeps overhead the huts with unexpected casualties. Orders arrive again to pack up and move. Nan Reay is granted leave. On her return from leave she joins a base hospital, No. 26 General Hospital Etaples, a town on the north west coast of France about 77 kms from Dunkirk. In the diary , she wrote, in capital letters, ON TEMPORARY DUTY AT NO. 26 GENERAL HOSPITAL AT ETAPLES. No. 26 Etaples was established in June 1915 and dismantled in...
2022-07-0811 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 16: 7th January to 4th March, 1918Very cold weather has set in. Movement orders again and this time Nan Reay was sent to an Advanced Operating Centre where they dealt only with emergencies. Nan was near Chauny which is 120 kms north west of Paris and very close to the front line.“na poo!” Slang from French il n’ y a plus, which British soldiers anglicized to “na poo” meaning, dead or finished.Advanced Operating CentresIt was important that each medical unit attached to a fighting unit was able to mobilise quickly and move forward to the fighting so...
2022-07-0815 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 17: 5th March - 23rd March, 1918Nan Reay’s prolific entries are astonishing in this episode. Despite awful weather, the constant barrage of enemy bombs and the chaotic arrival and evacuation of wounded soldiers, she manages to write in her diary nearly every day. The number of wounded brought to the Advanced Operating Centre near Chauny is extaordinary. She goes for a stroll one evening and sees the beginning of some “Hun” (German) saps in a cutting which shows how close she was to the front line. Saps were short trenches dug towards the enemy trenches across No Man’s Land and enabled soldiers to move forw...
2022-07-0814 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 18: 25th March to 21st May, 1918Sudden order to move again – at once! This time the move is through Amiens, onto Abbeville to work at Camiers and then back to Etaples. Extremely busy times in theatre and life is very chaotic but Nan Reay is always ready for duty. What is striking about her entries is the pure physical effort it took to get to the hospital bases and then the exhausting work which follows. Nan Reay meets refugees fleeing to safety from hard continuous fighting along the frontlines and an old friend from London.Chinese Labor Corps. These labourers have been es...
2022-07-0812 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 19: 10th June to 20th August, 1918Nan Reay visits Blighty (England) for a very special occasion. Her spirits are lifted and she is surrounded by family and friends even managing to see a show and eat a sumptuous dinner. She is granted seven days extension and returns to Boulogne on 1 July and then on to Etaples. However she is never in one place for very long as movement orders arrive again. Nan Reay takes charge at No. 19 Casualty Clearing Station and meets some resistance.In the summer of 1918 No. 19 Casualty Clearing Station was located at Frevent, a town situated between Arras and A...
2022-07-0814 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpisode 20: 21st August - 5th December, 1918Nan Reay moves to No. 19 Casualty Clearing Station, at Boisleux-St.-Marc and then Caudry.an eerie place where the days are long and the work in theatre very arduous. Another offensive or “push” means more casualties and Nan Reay is glad she is with a solid medical team because convoys are arriving continually, and they are all working at high pressure. A visit to the Somme battlefields brings back sad memories and a fruitless search for her fiancé’s grave. Nan hears that the Armistice has been signed. Although, the hospital is no lon...
2022-07-0812 minDispatches from the FrontlineEpilogue: What happened to Sister Nan Reay after the Great War? 1919 to 1968This episode pieces together parts of Sister Nan Reay’s life after the war. Information has been gathered from public records, newspaper articles and some family recollections. We know that upon her return to Melbourne, Nan worked at the Bryant and May factory as a nurse and was probably one of Australia’s first Occupational Health and Safety nurses. Her enthusiasm for people and service never waned and apart from the many committees she chaired as a volunteer, she also had time to run a calisthenics club. Born Annie Victoria Clarabel Reay in 1884, Sister Nan Reay died in...
2022-07-0803 min