The Australian Women's Register

Summary

Lyn Dale is a writer and documentary film maker with a passionate interest in the telling of the stories of ‘ordinary’ Australian women. She has written extensively on the lives of women in the military and has used her own family history to write about the experience of female immigration to Australia.

Lyn comes from a military background. Her father and four uncles served in WWII. The eldest of five children of John Murray Kane (former stockman, drover and soldier) and Betty Johnston, Lyn was educated in Perth Western Australia, apart from 2 years at boarding school in the wheatbelt area of WA. Early work as a machine embroiderer fuelled a lifelong interest in embroidery and sewing.

After enlisting in the Australian Army in 1964 and serving for 5 years, Lyn married a Vietnam War Veteran and spent the next decade living in mining towns in Western Australia. When the marriage ended in 1981 Lyn and her 2 daughters moved to Perth, where Lyn later secured an administrative position at Murdoch University. She remained there for 21 years before her retirement in 2009.

Working with Perth Film Maker Samantha Bergersen, Lyn has produced two historically significant documentaries. Maggie’s Journey, made in 2004 tells the story of Lyn’s paternal grandmother, Maggie Kelly (married name Kane). Twenty-five year old Maggie was one of a group of young female domestic servants who, in 1900, emigrated to Western Australia on a “bride ship”. The story is told through photographs, diary extracts, letters and other ephemera.

In 2011 received a grant from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to produce a 90 minute documentary that tells the stories of 16 women who served in the Australian Army from 1951 to the 1990s. Lady Soldiers received high acclaim for its historical significance. In 2012 Lyn began work on a book of the same name, to ensure that material collected for but not used in the documentary would not be lost to future generations.

Events

• 1964 - 1969
• 1988 - 2009
• 2001
• 2004
• 2008

  The exhibition displayed the cabin trunk and some of its artifacts, all of which Maggie Kelly Kane had brought with her to Australia in 1900.

  Co–curated a 3 month long exhibition, The Treasures In The Trunk, at the Western Australian Museum, Kalgoorlie - Boulder Branch.
• 2010

  The quilt features a WRAAC badge superimposed on a map of Australia, the kangaroo and emu from the Australian coat of arms and 4 Federation stars. The reverse of the quilt is made of calico and contains the signatures of many of the 450 ex W.R.A.A.C. and R.A.A.N.C. members who attended the event.

  Designed and sewed a quilt for the 60th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Women’s Royal Australian Army Corps, held in Sydney in 2011.
• 2011
• 2012

  12 of the 16 Lady Soldiers featured in the documentary came from all parts of Australia to attend the event.

  Lady Soldiers was launched in Western Australia to high acclaim by Historians (Military and Civilian), and a 200 strong gathering of people at Campbell Barracks in WA.
• 2012