Joyce Ffoulkes Parry was an Australian nurse who came to Britain in 1937 to rediscover her Welsh roots. When war was declared she signed up as a Queen Alexandra s nurse, and from 1940 until 1944, when she left India to begin her married life in Wales, she served as a sister in France, on hospital ships, and in hospitals in Egypt, India, and the Far East. Her journal came to light after her death in 1992. Out of the chaos of war emerges a unique voice telling a vivid, compelling, and honest story of adventure, bravery, friendship, homesickness, and war-time romance. Edited by her daughter and published here for the first time, Joyce s wry observations about everything from the bureaucracy of the army to how shopping helped sustain her through four difficult but extraordinary years offer an fascinating glimpse into a vanished world."