Florence Payne was making the bed when the army car pulled up outside early in the morning. Clutching the sheet, she took a deep breath. “How many men are there?” she asked her 14-year-old son, Ron. “Two,” he said. Was one of them a chaplain? “No.”
Flo slumped with relief. Her husband, Keith, had only been wounded, not killed.
It was 1969, Keith was in combat in Vietnam, and it would not be the last time the army car would arrive with bad news. She lived with the dread every day, trying not to watch the news. “You just hope and pray and every night ask the good Lord to bring him home safely,” Flo recalls.
Keith was not an easy man to be married to. Because of his army career the family was constantly moving. Flo has lost count of how many times, but in 1965 alone it was three. He was away so often, for the whole year of 1969, that she had to be both mother and father to their five sons. She could be strict, says their son Colin, “when she had to be”. And when Keith did come home, when it was all over and he was a war hero, having earned the country’s highest military honour, the bravest of the brave, he was a changed man. “I was not all there” he admits. “I couldn’t switch off from the state of vigilance I’d had to maintain in Vietnam.” He would automatically reach for a rifle, his sons learned to come in bending down low to wake him up in the morning.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 2021 من The Australian Women's Weekly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 2021 من The Australian Women's Weekly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Hitting a nerve
Regulating the vagus nerve with its links to depression, anxiety, arthritis and diabetes - could aid physical and mental wellbeing.
Take me to the river
With a slew of new schedules and excursions to explore, the latest river cruises promise to give you experiences and sights you won’t see on the ocean.
The last act
When family patriarch Tom Edwards passes away, his children must come together to build his coffin in four days, otherwise they will lose their inheritance. Can they put their sibling rivalry aside?
MEET RUSSIA'S BRAVEST WOMEN
When Alexei Navalny died in a brutal Arctic prison, Vladimir Putin thought he had triumphed over his most formidable opponent. Until three courageous women - Alexei's mother, wife and daughter - took up his fight for freedom.
The wines and lines mums
Once only associated with glamorous A-listers, cocaine is now prevalent with the soccer-mum set - as likely to be imbibed at a school fundraiser as a nightclub. The Weekly looks inside this illegal, addictive, rising trend.
Jenny Liddle-Bob.Lucy McDonald.Sasha Green - Why don't you know their names?
Indigenous women are being murdered at frightening rates, their deaths often left uninvestigated and widely unreported. Here The Weekly meets families who are battling grief and desperate for solutions.
Growing happiness
Through drought flood and heartbreak, Jenny Jennr's sunflowers bloom with hope, sunshine and joy
"Thank God we make each other laugh"
A shared sense of humour has seen Aussie comedy couple Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall conquer the world. But what does life look like when the cameras go down:
Winter baking with apples and pears
Celebrate the season of Australian apples and pears with these sweet bakes that will keep the midwinter blues away.
Budget dinner winners
Looking for some thrifty inspiration for weeknight dinners? Try our tasty line-up of low-cost recipes that are bound to please everyone at the table.