Blue Ribbons Bitter Bread

Joice Loch was an extraordinary Australian. She had the inspired courage that saved many hundreds of Jews and Poles in World War II, the compassion that made her a self-trained doctor to tens of thousands of refugees, the incredible grit that took her close to death in several theatres of war, and the dedication to truth and justice that shone forth in her own books and a lifetime of astonishing heroism.Born in a cyclone in 1887 on a Queensland sugar plantation, she grew up in grinding poverty in Gippsland and emerged from years of unpaid drudgery by writing a children's book and freelance journalism. In 1918 she married Sydney Loch, author of a banned book on Gallipoli. After a dangerous time in Dublin during the Troubles, they excaped from possible IRA vengeance to work with the Quakers in Poland. There they rescued countless dispossessed people from disease and starvation and risked death themselves.In 1922 Joice and Sydney went to Greece to aid the 1,500,000 refugees fleeing Turkish persecution. Greece was to become their home. They lived in an ancient tower by the sea in the shadows of Athos, the Holy Mountain, and worked selflessly for decades to save victims of war, famine and disease.During World War II, Joice was an agent for the Allies in Eastern Europe and pulled off a spectacular escape to snatch over a thousand Jews and Poles from death just before the Nazis invaded Bucharest, escorting them via Constantinople to Palestine. By the time she died in 1982, Joice had written ten books, saved many thousands of lives and was one of the world's most decorated women. At her funeral the Greek Orthodox Bishop of Oxford named her 'one of the most significant women of the twentieth century'.

Susanna de Vries is an international author and former lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology. She writes full-time but also lectures to branches of the Australian Fine and Decorative Art Society. She speaks fluent Spanish and French and has lived and worked in London, Edinburgh, Berlin, Florence, Barcelona and Sydney but now lives in Brisbane and has nine grandchildren. Susanna's fourteen books have won her literary awards in Ireland and Britain, an Order of Australia for services to literature and a Winston Churchill Fellowship. Deidre Rubenstein is regarded as one of Australia's most accomplished actresses. As a stage actress, she has starred in productions with all major Australian theatre companies and has created three highly acclaimed one-woman shows which have toured Australia and overseas. Deidre won an Australian Film Industry (AFI) award for Best Actress in the mini-series Palace of Dreams and is also a multi-award-winning narrator. Audiobooks narrated for Bolinda include Elizabeth Costello by Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee, Gilgamesh by Joan London, Elizabeth Harrower novels and various ABC titles.

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