List of Illustrations

1.   Madge Graves in 1930, aged seven.

2.   Doris, Mum, Doreen and Madge in High Wycombe in 1941.

3.   Madge as a trainee Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, 1941.

4.   Madge with Vera Clark, her fellow VAD.

5.   Madge with Phyl Irvine in 1942.

6.   Ward 11, Stoke Mandeville Hospital, May 1943.

7.   Madge in London, July 1944, as she waited to depart for India.

8.   Arriving in Poona and enjoying a banana.

9.   With the girls at the mess at Poona.

10.   Vera outside a basha ward.

11.   56 Indian General Hospital, view from the mess.

12.   The Lamberts on parade. From left to right: Bill, Buster, Beryl, Basil, Brian and Bob.

13.   Basil at the Officers’ Training Centre in Mhow in 1943.

14.   From left to right: Basil, Jock, Jim and Tom in Chittagong, March 1944.

15.   An entry in Lieutenant Colonel Whittaker’s war diary, mentioning the Japanese woman with a gunshot wound.

16.   Patients and staff at Christmas, 1944.

17.   A beautiful bridesmaid in a dress made from a sari.

18.   On holiday in Calcutta with Basil, April 1945.

19.   Saying goodbye. A picnic on the beach at Patanga, May 1945.

20.   Madge and the girls on the MV Georgic as they began their journey home.

21.   Vera, Phyl and Madge on Regent Street, London, 1947.

22.   Basil came back to the coldest winter of the twentieth century, February 1947.

23.   Madge and Basil on their wedding day, 16 October 1948.

24.   Madge and Basil meeting Dame Vera Lynn on Horse Guards Parade on the 60th anniversary of VE and VJ Day, July 2005.

25.   Madge meeting Prince Harry at Buckingham Palace Garden Party in 2017.