Testimonials: COME WITH ME

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Dear Mrs Bayfield,

I have read your book "Come With Me" and must tell you how much I enjoyed it. Joan Fisher must be a truly wonderful lady and it is so good to read a book about the nursing services. It is an area which I believe has been neglected. That is a real shame, because nurses and medical services are such a vital part of both the military and civilian fabric in any society.

My wife is an ex-Innesfail girl and we have visited Rocky Creek several times. One of the patients at the surgery where she works spent some time at 'Rocky' so we always felt a closer connection with it when we visited. There is good coverage of the area in a book I Didn't Know That by Vera Bradley.

You have written a marvelous book and I sincerely congratulate you. I hope it is a real best seller. It is full of history, compassion, some family sadness and religious values and a look at a style of life that is now long gone forever. My thanks to both of you for such a wonderful read.

Yours sincerely,
Richard Salmond

This journey of a brave young nurse to her life of service to others is told with sympathy, understanding and then crafted into a beautifully written story by Pam Bayfield. Joan Fisher shares her memories with Pam in such a way that the reader is drawn into the anticipation, excitement, fear and reality of war service under challenging conditions.

The love stories of the girls are told through their letters and the intimacy of the moments thus explored makes inspiring reading.

Going to foreign ports Joan and her friends Ida and Winsome could never have dreamt of, we share the taste of places as strange to them as they would have been to us and through her own skill as a story teller, Pam shows us the emotional roller coaster of girls in their early twenties, much less prepared for life than young women of our time.

A sense of period is contained yet described in such fine detail it is almost as if we are also in Aden, Borneo as well as on the hospital ship.

Like many dedicated to the service of others, Joan Fisher describes caring for others as 'a privilege'.

This book is essential reading for any young women contemplating entering the Defence Force nursing or indeed hospital nursing for it will give them an insight into the lives of those who have gone before, the empathy and also sadness with the patients needed to make a good nurse.

More importantly, to the general reader, and those retired from nursing professionally, it will be a reminder of the sacrifices of the few for the many.

Congratulations to Pam Bayfield for making Joan Fisher's story so readable.

Renée Goossens
8 February 2010

Dear Pam,

Thank you for having Joan Fisher's life story published. I enjoyed reading your book and I believe it is important these stories be told for our following generations.

My father lost his life on the Centaur and we will be passing a book on to each of our two children. They are great readers, in fact our son is a Publisher and loves books.

Joan's is a great story and thank you for making it public.

I have just read An Awkward Truth, the bombing of Darwin, February 1942 by Peter Grose.

My father served in Darwin at that time and it has given me an insight into his service with 2/12 F.A. there. Books of that time in history are important to get the message of war across to the young and one can feel the story in a book that is well written.

It was nice to meet you at Joan's book launch. Congratulations and well done.

Kind regards,
Rod Blackman

Dear Pam,

Finally I am home and able to sit at a computer for a little while. Many many congratulations on the book and all the good revues. I really enjoyed it and it must have been quite fun being with Joan she sounds like a very active interesting woman an inspiration to us all.

I am not much good at writing reviews but I thought Joan's story and that of her nurse friends was an wonderful example of ordinary people being put in very difficult, trying conditions and dealing with it in an extraordinary way. Then after the war with Mac, her husband, she expanded her horizons yet again becoming a tremendous asset to whichever community she was in.

The other part of the book I really enjoyed was your accounts of the Australian soldiers role in WW2. Up until I read your book I had not been aware of the terrible sacrifices they made with the Japanese and the fighting in New Guinea.

Thank you for adding that very interesting addition to the book. I had an uncle, long deceased, who had been a prisoner of war on the Burmese railway and may even have gone through what Jean and her nurses were doing.

Well Pam, once again many congratulations on this latest book and I hope it keeps selling for you.

Fondest love, as always,
Chris