Nancy Wake

A chapter of history was underlined yesterday with the death of the White Mouse, nom de guerre of Nancy Wake, born in NZ and raised in Australia.

A leader of 7000 resistance fighters during WWII, she received France's highest military award, the Legion d'honneur, and three Croix de guerre. She was also decorated by the British and, belatedly, by the Australian Government in 2004.

Nancy holds a very special place in my heart. Her story is told by Russell Braddon and the book sat first on my step-mother Sue's bookshelf and later, in triplicate, on mine. When Peter Fitzsimons book arrived, I discovered to my great surprise that Nancy had lived next door to a close childhood friend, Stewart (whose brother had a Heinkel scooter) and she went to the same church in which I'd been confirmed, St Augustines, directly across the road from my house in Wycombe Road, Neutral Bay.

Further information in this 2009 post about Nancy Wake.

More on Nancy Wake's exploits at the SMH:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/memories-of-the-feisty-white-mouse-20110808-1ij8z.html

White Mouse

The Lambrettaholic of the previous post knew all about Nancy, as it turned out. This morning he turned up with The White Mouse. So boo sucks to the unbelievers who doubt this synchronicity thing. I mean, what are the odds that the one person I write to about a relatively obscure book has an even more obscure autobiography by its subject and happens to live close enough to include it with delivery he'd planned to drop in to me the following day?

Not sure if I mentioned that as well as having a friend who lived next door to Nancy's Neutral Bay house in Holdsworth St - Stewart, from whom I bought the killer Lambretta - I attended the church across the road, St Augustines, where she had taught Sunday School and I also went to Neutral Bay Public School, referred to in the Peter Fitzsimons book as Intermediate.

Quote from a North Sydney gov.au document:

The growth of the Neutral Bay district in the federation era led to severe overcrowding at the school. The demands for extensions to the school were eased in 1937 when the Neutral Bay Girls Intermediate School was transferred to the newly formed Cremorne Girls High School in Murdoch St and the Intermediate Boys High School moved to Mosman.