Auntie Emmie's Suitcase

Emmie Chester died on ... 2005. For the previous eighty-seven years, she had lived a quiet life in Shropshire, looking after her ... and her great-niece Susan Davies, but once, long ago she had lived a very different life. It was something she didn't talk about very much. During World War One, she had served in France in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and was wooed by a handsome Australian entertainer. She might have moved with him to Australia. On Emmie's death, Susan found a battered old suitcase in the attic, which contained a jumble of her aunt's letters, photographs, documents and souvenirs from that time. The suitcase revealed a life of comradeship, austerity, romance and also of sadness and it gave an insight into the changing role of women in society during the early twentieth century. This is the story of Emmie Chester's life in France told in words and pictures, as it emerged from the contents of a battered old suitcase.