ISBN 1 921008 37 7
These memoirs trace Olive Cookes’ story from her youth in Bournemouth, England during the depression years, through her medical school days in London, during World War II, to her work in TB hospitals and family planning clinics in South Africa, where she married car industry executive Peter Johnston.
The birth of the couple’s four children is followed by the family’s emigration to Adelaide, Australia, in 1966. Here Olive worked at the mothercraft and children’s hospitals, and was involved in parent education, sex education, family planning and campaigning for abortion law reform.
Post-graduate study and research into child health, developmental delay and poorly co-ordinated children followed in the 1970s, together with a move to the school health department.
In retirement Olive studies and practises the complementary therapies Reiki and Qi Gong.
Olive has been a Soroptimist for thirty-six years, and all proceeds from the sale of her memoirs will go to Project Independence to help women survivors of war in Afghanistan, Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina.