As part of the ongoing struggle to cull and attempt to get order into Little Darwin's collection of files , books, oddities and ephemera , built up over more than half a century , it was disturbing to discover that photo albums relating to a woman described in a newspaper article as the "most bomb chased Australian nurse of WWll" had been been attacked by borers.
The albums, bought in an Adelaide antique shop ,compiled over more than 30 years by Marjorie Congreve , pictured above, dating from the early 1930s in Western Australia, were wrapped in plastic and sealed, but parts had been riddled.
There are photographs taken in 1934 of the children's ward at Perth Hospital decorated for Christmas , Miss Congreve a nurse there. The nursery rhyme decorations included butterflies, moths and insects for Walk Into My Parlour , said the Spider to the Fly, with a large cobweb and spider ; Miss Muffet , sitting on her tuffet, presented as a nurse ; The Old woman Who lived in a Shoe with a cat .
Nurse Congreve went off to England and appears to have nursed the children of well to do people. One album starts off with numerous professionally taken snapshots of various parts of England -Cambridge, Wales , Stratford- on -A von , with interposed groups of people and scenes , some captioned , Marjorie named ; snowstorm scenes ; Monmouth Oak , Somerset under which the plans for the Battle of Sedgemoor were planned , pit for bear- baiting nearby .
There is extensive coverage of Middleton Park 1941-1943 where military patients were treated, some Polish airmen , included several snaps of Congreve ; two photos of children evacuated from London hospital which received a direct hit during the blitz. Extensive coverage of Norley Bank for children during the war , with names of staff , two full plate l944 Christmas party , many names , two American doctors visitors .
Invitation , Congreve's name at top , February 10,1944 from Earl and Countess Spencer to marriage of their daughter Anne to Lieutenant Christopher Wake-Walker , Westminister Abbey , with newspaper cuttings of princesses Margaret and Elizabeth , one with pic , who attended .
Many interior and exterior shots taken of a mother craft centre with names, village scenes . Crossing the equator King Neptune ceremony aboard ship on way home to Australia in 1945.
An extensive section at the back of an album covers the period l940 to l945 . It includes wide ranging views of Western Australia , Darwin : party with flying doctor plane named Dunbar Hooper ll , Fitzroy Crossing ; interior of Servicemen's Club Darwin ; dust storms ; 1942 bomb crater at Broome, Perth-Darwin Air Service truck in background ; Australian Inland Mission premises ; man believed to be colourful Northern Territory flying doctor Clyde Fenton ; civilians looking at the two-man midget submarine ( below) caught in Sydney Harbour in l943 ; 1945 Peace Parade ; a Perth air raid shelter ; woman posing with beehive .
