If you wanted to learn more about the role of women in wartime then asking my Gran wouldn't be of much use. She was born in 1929, so was still a schoolgirl when Hitler started acting up.
Growing up in Bridgeton she was often in the thick of bombing raids. But oh Gran, wasn't it terrifying, I'd ask. Were you not scared when the sirens went off? Och no, she told me. The weans loved the sirens because it meant a day off school.
That was an interesting story as it offered another perspective of women in wartime. Usually we're only given hard-working Home Front housewives magicking up meals from a potato and a smudge of lard. Or we might get angelic nurses. To that little pantheon of wartime women I could now add schoolgirls celebrating a day away from school to play in the rubble.
Anzac Girls (More4) is an Australian mini-series over six episodes which is now being shown in this country. It's a drama set during the First World War about the women of the Australian Army Nursing Service and is based on diaries and letters written by the nurses as they worked out in Gallipoli and Egypt.
Seeing the cast of young women prettily decked out in red capes and swishing skirts I wondered if this would be just another tired old depiction of women in wartime in one of their standard roles, but I remained optimistic. It's an Australian drama, not some soppy British thing. Surely, the Aussies are known for kicking away anything soft and sentimental? They won't give us frills and blushes and afternoon tea…
But they did. We see the nurses arrive in Cairo, all girlish excitement and fluttering naivety. They're away from home for the first time and, as they step down from the train in the heat and exoticism of Cairo, they're less like brave nurses and more like public schoolgirls on a trip: 'good thing we have our deckchairs to help us face the ordeals of war!' squeaks one of them. Naturally, there are soon lots of flirty glances being exchanged with dashing soldiers.
And what do these gallant lads do? Are they off being slaughtered, as was the reality? No, they're squiring the ladies around town for 'tea at an oasis, a string quartet by the Sphinx.'
Back in their dormitories, the nurses flirt and float around in dressing gowns. Is there going to be any war, we might wonder? No such luck. It's represented by an occasional flicker and flare on the twilit horizon.
As the nurses fall in and out of love and intrigues, wounded soldiers are sometimes wheeled into the scene and there's a sudden burst of horrible, bloodied activity. The silly girls transform into nurses, slowly easing sleek, wet bullets out of scarlet wounds. These scenes from the operating theatres arise from nowhere, shock us, then vanish and we're straight back into Downton Abbey with flirtations and pretty hats, lace collars and tea. The only thing reminding us we're not in Downton are the Australian accents.
It's always good to have a female perspective on war, but not if it's restricted to nursing, flirting and looking for husbands.
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