This Mother’s Day, I’m thinking of one woman in particular. She’s 92 now. We call her Redhead - not just for the colour of her hair, but for the fire that’s still in her spirit. She was just a child when the world went to war, yet she grew up to raise children of her own, then grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and yes, even a great-great-grandchild. Five generations held together by one woman who never needed a spotlight - just a bit of commonsense, an honest tongue when needed, ( which is often! ) and a heart big enough to weather every storm.
Redhead didn’t fight on a battlefield, but she’s known her share of battles .... the kind that happen in kitchens, in school parent teacher meetings, and around dinner tables where love and stubbornness sometimes clash. She’s lived through wars and family skirmishes alike, and somehow kept us all stitched together with nothing more than fierce loyalty, dry humour, and a no-nonsense kind of love that never wavered.
There are thousands like her. Women who carried nations without ever carrying a gun. This tribute is for them ... and especially for our Redhead.
On this Mother's Day, we often think of love, nurture, and the quiet strength that builds families. But let us also remember the mothers who lived through war. The mothers who waited. Who worked.
Who buried sons.
Who stitched uniforms and broken hearts alike. This day is not just for flowers and breakfast in bed: it is for honouring the generations of women who, through their maternal courage, helped shape and save the world we live in.
Women sent their men to war knowing that this was the only way their lives and the lives of their children could be kept safe. More importantly, men went to keep their women safe.
The role of women in times of war are well known. Whether it be in the hospitals at the frontline, treating our injured and traumatised, or by staying home and keeping the farm going or working in a munitions factory.
Yet so many died in the service of our Nation.
Australian nurses in Egypt during the First World War, and, inset, nurses treating wounded soldiers and Dame Maud McCarthy. Pictures: Australian War Memorial
The role of women was important - they provided much needed support to those who were at the battlefront who needed to know that they were fighting FOR someone. Our men NEEDED to know that they were achieving something honourable and worthwhile.
Our Nurses volunteered to tend the wounded and hold a hand or hear a young soldier talk about his "girlfriend " back home. If he had been blinded or unable to write, she could not only salve his physical wounds but also the wounds in his soul. She could read a letter, write a letter or simply hold his hand and listen and offer a soft and feminine touch that was so foreign in the battlefield that was his body and his mind.
I think this was a D Day photo but it evoked the emotion
Did that young soldier want that Nurse to be wielding a rifle beside him in the trenches or be taken prisoner and subjected to heaven knows what?
No!
He was there to keep her safe. That was his driving force. His reason for being there. For his Mum, his sisters, his daughters and his belief in everything he held dear.
And MEN, REAL MEN, have not changed.
Many years ago, I knew a man who was a Police Officer. He was on duty at a New Years Eve event and he was rostered to work in tandem with a young female officer who was about 5 foot tall. She was 7 months pregnant. He said to me that he was more worried about her getting hurt than doing his job.
Our women did fight in our wars. They fought in the farm fields of Australia and the daily heartache of waiting for a telegram that they prayed that they would never get.
They fought in the heartfelt belief that they could contribute to our fight against foreign oppression.
Lest We Forget the role that so many played and the work of the women from the Boer War right through to the modern day.
Raped and murdered, all bar one — and the survivor wasn’t permitted to tell the full horrific tale (Image via awm.gov.au)
In the fall of Singapore, the sole survivor, Australian nurse as told here. Vivian Bullwinkell’s was a tale of horror.
Yes, women fought in the Defence of our Nation.
Just look at Nancy Wake, a spy, who Kiwis and Australian's share with equal pride. Known as “The White Mouse” Nancy led the French Resistance in its final days.
She was born in New Zealand but grew up in Australia and travelled to Europe as a Journalist. In 1939 she married a French man who was killed during the war. Nancy then joined the French Resistance with the name " The White Mouse ". She went on to become a Special Agent working for the British and in 1944, was parachuted in to France to help the Resistance gear up for the Allied D-Day landings. After the war, she worked for British Intelligence at the British Air Ministry before returning to Australia in the 1960's.
When Britain entered the Second World War in September 1939, Our dear Princess ( Later to become Queen ) Elizabeth was not even fourteen years old.
The long-serving British Conservative politician, Douglass Hogg, the Viscount Hailsham, had recently retired from government, but still had the ear of those at the top of British society. He suggested to the Royal Family that the young Elizabeth and her sister Margaret should be evacuated to Canada, but the princess’ mother replied in no uncertain terms.
“The children won’t go without me,” she said, “I won’t leave without the King, and the King will never leave.”
It was as she approached her eighteenth birthday that she enrolled in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service. The ATS, as it was known, was the women’s branch of the British army, and ATS women saw service in France and at home, working in many supporting roles, though never in front-line combat. Some worked as radio operators, and teams of ATS women crewed anti-aircraft guns and spotlights, among many other roles.
Princess Elizabeth trained as a mechanic and a truck driver, learning to work on the engines of many different kinds of motor vehicles.
King George famously said, when asked about his daughter's new role in the war effort that the subject of conversation at dinner was now " about engines and oil. "
Meanwhile back home, women tended the farms and the children and waited - not idly by but with guts and determination - women fought alongside their menfolk and provided the support both emotional and material for our armed forces to keep fighting.
But they all fought for the same thing: the future of our families. Our ways of life. Our futures.
Men and women fought together, died and sacrificed so that we could live this life, our life.
If we don't fight for our women and kids, there is no one left to fight for.
Men and women have done it before. And we can do it again.
Together.
On this Mother's Day, let us remember that motherhood is more than a title - it is an act of defiance against despair, a quiet but powerful form of resistance and renewal. The women we honour today bore more than children; they bore burdens too heavy to speak of, and dreams for a better future. Let their stories remind us that strength comes not just from those on the battlefield, but from those who held the home front with aching arms and hopeful hearts.
So this Mother's Day, while we rightly celebrate the cards and flowers, the breakfasts in bed and the warm embraces, let’s also remember the Redheads of this world. The ones who kept things going - not by making a fuss, but by simply showing up. Day after day. Year after year. Through ration books and nappies, weddings and funerals, laughter and heartbreak.
Our Mums didn’t build monuments or run for office. They built something far more lasting - a family. A legacy. A nation, in their own way.
And if you asked Redhead, she’d probably shrug it off, wave a hand, and say, “Oh, I just did what had to be done.” But we know better. We know that the world we stand in was steadied by women like her.
Here’s to Redhead, and every mother like her. Not just mothers of children, but mothers of nations.
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