I’ll Tell You This for Nothing - My Mother the War Hero: CANCELLED

“Here there is humour, horror, pathos and poignancy that only the very best drama can convey.” Craig Cook, Adelaide Advertiser *Fringe Five Stars* BEST FEMALE SOLO.

Why did France award the Legion d’Honneur – its highest accolade for exceptional courage to Phyllis, a little known Kiwi woman from Ireland?

About the play
Phyllis JasonSmith was one of only two NZ women ever to have been honoured with France’s highest decoration, the Legion d’Honneur, for bravery in WWII.

And she was my mother.

We grew up on war stories of bombs screaming overhead as she and other QA nurses crawled around the hospital tent on their knees among the constant stream of wounded and dying solders “…the only light our tilly lamps, the only water a barrel outside the tent door.” Not all her stories were tragic, in fact most had a lighter side, a twist, a punchline. And then there was the love story, woven through her tale like a ray of hope. Phyllis was vivacious, courageous, humorous, haunted by the war until the end of her long life.

Book: The Good Life