When The Birds Stop Singing

by Margaret Stewart

Overview

Just five years after welcoming her beloved father home from the Second World War Louise Miller is married and whisked off to the outback. The whole world is in a state of transition with women gaining independence and old social standards being replaced. Australian ingenuity seems to be overcoming the tyranny of distance. In these years, post war optimism collides with harsh conditions in the bush... it's up to Louise and her husband John to make a life for themselves, in conditions where even the animals seem to survive by eating stones. Louise learns from the aboriginal people who occupied the land long before white station owners. Interwoven with their personal stories is the story of Australia at a crucial moment in its history, when the new world was beginning and anything was possible.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781512167344
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	05/25/2015
Pages:	318
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Margaret 'Midge' Stewart was born in far North Queensland and grew up during the Great Depression and the second World War.

It was her father, a Scottish immigrant, who gave her the nick-name Midge, preferring it to her christened name, Margaret. When he was captured by the Japanese and forced to work as a prisoner on the Changi railway, Midge and her family never knew if he'd survive. It was a life-shaping experience.

After the war, Midge married young and had four children, like so many women of her generation. But when her youngest were at school, she took up study herself, achieving a Bachelor of Arts from Queensland University and later, a Master of Arts in Religious Studies.

Midge Stewart lives on the Gold Coast near one of her daughters and three of her nine grandchildren. She writes magazine articles, and likes long walks. This is her first novel.

Midge believes that this generation of people in Australian History arelargely overlooked as being the founders and heroes of our society today. She has a passion for story telling and believes that this immediate post war period was harsh, yet colourful and exciting. This is her way of exposing more Australians to a vast and epic era of our history.

Midge received an IP Picks 2011: Best Fiction - First Commended for "When the Birds Stop Singing". She has had a number of short stories published in magazines.