Lisa Wilkinson

Mavis, one of her sister's children.

And Mavis used to come and stay with them in Bondi.

And one of the great joys of researching this book is that I found Mavis's daughter, Patria.

And I wasn't sure if she was still with us.

I calculated she was probably in her early 70s.

And I contacted her.

And for two weeks, there was absolute silence.

And I said to Pete, maybe Petria's not with us anymore.

And then I got a very cautious email back.

And we had a bit of an exchange.

And it was clear that Petria

She was the keeper of all of the family folklore.

And it turns out she had all of the letters between Evelyn and William.

She had so much communication, telegrams.

So I said to her, is there any chance we could have a phone call?

Because I thought this isn't working over email.

It's all a little bit stilted.

And we had a phone call and that phone call lasted two and a half hours.

And she trusted me completely with Evelyn's story because all her life she's had this family folklore close to her heart.

but knew about this magnificent woman from our history who was almost lost to history.