‘No way, can’t do that,’ Edie had said with a vigorous shake of the head. ‘We partners, you and me, Val. Partners, they share down the middle.’

Val could do nothing, aware this was a matter of pride. And more often than not, along with the money Edie would deliver a gift of fresh fish. Whenever Edie wasn’t laundering or going walkabout she was fishing – Edie just loved to fish. She would refuse payment from Val, despite the fact that she sold much of her catch to others.

‘That a present from me to you,’ she’d say, offended when Val offered money. Aware she was powerless to help, Val quickly realised any offer to do so was unnecessary anyway. Edie may be poor, but she was blissfully happy.

Time ultimately solved any worries Val may have had, however, for within several years Edie’s laundry business was successful enough to require the employment of a young Palm Island woman.

‘Me and Jill need someone to lend a hand, Val,’ Edie said, ‘and good we give work to a Palm Island girl.’

Well, blow me down, Val thought, the investment’s proved workable after all.

Then the following year, 1940, Jill was turning eighteen and keen to get a proper job – ‘out in the real world’, as Edie said. A problem easily solved.

‘She’ll come and work for me,’ Val announced, ‘I’ll teach her all about the real world, Edie, I can promise you that. And she’ll be safe in my hands, you know she will.’

So Edie employed a second Palm Island girl and Jill went off to The Brown’s.

Over the following year or so, further changes occurred. The laundry sustained a modest income and could be considered moderately successful, but Edie’s boatshed had by now become more than just a laundry, and Edie herself more than just a laundress. To the Palm Island girls who came and went, working for a while, then going walkabout, then more often than not returning, the boatshed was a gathering place. A place where they felt welcomed and at home. Whether they worked there or not, the girls gravitated to the boatshed, and above all to the matriarch who presided there. Aunty Edie.

Now in her early forties – or thereabouts, she was never quite sure – Edie had earned the title, which had been bestowed upon her as a measure of respect. She’d become Aunty Edie to all who knew her. To the Palm Island girls though, Aunty Edie was particularly special, for she was one of them. Aunty Edie was Bwgcolman.

But the biggest change of all was yet to come. And not just for Edie, but for the whole of Townsville. The army was about to arrive.