- Joice NanKivell Loch
Joice Mary NanKivell Loch (
24 January 1887 Ingham, Queensland –8 October 1982 )cite web|url=http://www.austlit.edu.au/run?ex=ShowAgent&agentId=A(AN|title=Agent Details: Loch, Joice Nankivell|accessdate=2006-07-10|work=author information available for public browsing|publisher=www.AustLit.edu.au|] was anAustralia n author, journalist and humanitarian worker who worked with refugees inPoland ,Greece andRomania afterWorld War I andWorld War II .Kontominas, B. [http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-great-heroine-australia-forgot/2006/07/07/1152240493799.html The great heroine Australia forgot] , "Sydney Morning Herald", July 8, 2006]Biography
Joice NanKivell was born at Farnham
sugar cane plantation in Ingham in far northQueensland in 1887. Her father acted as manager of the plantation for Fanning, NanKivell, a company run by the Fanning brothers and her wealthy grandfatherThomas NanKivell . The family fortune was lost however whenKanaka labour was abolished and Joice and her parents walked off the property virtually penniless. Joice's father George NanKivell took a job as manager on a run-down property inGippsland where Joice grew up. She had wanted to become a doctor but the family was unable to pay university fees and so she helped on the property until she was twenty-six. After the death of her brother duringWorld War I , her father abandoned the farm and Joice went to Melbourne where she worked for the Professor of Classics at theUniversity of Melbourne and reviewed books for the Melbourne "Sun-Herald ".She met her husband,
Gallipoli veteranSydney Loch when she reviewed his anti-war book "To Hell and Back, the banned story of Gallipoli" which told of the horrors of that campaign. The book had been banned by the military censor fearful that if the truth about the slaughter at Gallipoli were revealed young men would stop enlisting to fight inFrance . [, Sydney. "To Hell and Back, the banned story of Gallipoli" HarperCollins, Sydney, 2007 and Isis Publishing, London, 2008 ]Joice and Sydney Lochs went to
Poland as aid workers for theQuaker Movement with the aim of writing a book about the damage thatLenin 's troops had inflicted on Poland and were awarded medals by the President of Poland for their humanitarian work. In 1922 they went toGreece as aid workers following the burning ofSmyrna . The Lochs worked in a Quaker-runrefugee camp on the outskirts ofThessaloniki for two years before being given a peppercorn rent on aByzantine tower by the sea in the refugee village ofOuranoupolis . The tower now houses a small museum honouring the Loch's humanitarian work.To help the starving villagers, Joice purchased
loom s so that the women could work as rug weavers; she designed Byzantine rugs, one of which is now on display in thePowerhouse Museum inSydney . She also acted as a medical orderly and held regular clinics for the villagers. For their work in Greece the couple were awarded medals by theKing of the Hellenes . [cite news
author=Maxine McKew
coauthors=Susanna de Vries
url=http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s229874.htm and Susanna de Vries, Blue Ribbons, Bitter Bread, Pirgos Press/Tower Books, Sydney.
title=Transcript: Australian women of the century remembered in federation book
work=7:30 report
publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation
date=2000-12-28
accessdate=2006-08-08]During
World War II Joice was awarded another two medals by the Governments of Romania and Poland for saving a thousandPolish andJewish children from theNazis by leading a daring escape known as "Operation Pied Piper" fromRomania where they were running a refugee centre for Poles who had escaped from the Nazis and the Russian invasion. Subsequently Joice and Sydney ran a refugee camp for Poles atHaifa . In 1945 they returned to Greece and their tower home and re-established thePirgos rug industry in Ouranoupolis.elected bibliography
Fiction
* "The Cobweb Ladder" (1916), poetry and prose for children
* "The Solitary Pedestrian" (1918)
* "The Fourteen Thumbs of st Peter" (1926)Non-fiction
* "A Fringe of Blue" (1968)
ydney Loch
Sydney Loch, (1888 - 6th February 1955) [de Vries, Susanna "Blue Ribbons Bitter Bread: The Life of Joice NanKivell Loch, Australia's Most Decorated Woman" 2000 Hale & Iremonger, Australia
ISBN :0868066915] , was aGallipoli veteran and a humanitarian worker. He won many medals devoted his life to othersFact|date=September 2008.Life
Born in London in 1888, Sydney Loch was raised in Scotland [ibid.] . He sailed to Australia in 1905, aged 17, working first as a
jackaroo and then as anwriter [ibid.] . He married Joice NanKivell in 1919, and together they sailed for England [ibid.] . They secured a contract to write a book on Ireland, which was published as "Ireland in Travail" [ibid.] . He and his wife then volunteered for the Quaker Relief Service [ibid.] going to Poland. He helped to improve a system of loaning horses to farmers for plowing and he was awarded several medals [ibid.] .After their work in
Poland , Sydney and Joice went to Greece to assist with aid work there. They settled in the tiny refugee village ofOuranopolis . Here he helped countless refugees and saved many lives. [ibid.] Sydney died on the 6th February 1955. [ibid.]Notes
References
*Adelaide, Debra (1988) "Australian women writers: a bibliographic guide", London, Pandora
Further reading
* de Vries, Susanna, "'Blue Ribbons Bitter Bread: the Life of Joice NanKivell Loch" (3rd ed., 2005)
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