… get in shot Irene, lean in, still no good, swap chairs with Kit, Kit’s too tall in any case, now look like you are doing something, suppose this is your roster, you might discuss your jobs and times, can’t you, that’s what you’d do, Win, you’re explaining it to Adrienne, but not smiling, …
[RED, page 217]
Two photographs survive of the Rostherne commune. They were taken to illustrate a story by Irene Dexter in Woman magazine.
Six of the “Communardes” in the Rostherne dining room in 1942, discussing the duty roster. Left to right (as identified in 2005 by Kay Leuliette): Winifred Buzacott, Kay Stephens (Kay Leuliette), Adrienne Parkes, Kit Parkes, Olive Courcier (Olive Long) and (?) Irene Macilwraith.
Then out into the garden. The women, with the kids all over them, assemble on the front veranda steps. The camera chappie pushes back into the rhododendron with his black-box big-format instrument, screwed to three legs longer than his own, to get the whole group in. [RED, page 217]
Some of the mothers and children on the front steps at Rostherne in 1942, including Kit Parkes (top row, centre), Adrienne Parkes (centre left) and Winifred Buzacott (front left). Adrienne is holding her daughter Jan; her son David is sitting on the pillar.
These are also the women and children who appear in the Wollstonecraft episode (RED p. 206)
