Last week I returned to Port Hedland, the first time since 2015 when I was researching The Dog with Seven Names. After a breakfast presentation with the Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Camilo Blanco and I visited DOME café, the refurbished hospital where my fictitious dog lived in 1942.
The first time I visited this site, the hospital building was fenced off and in disrepair. Travelling back in 2015, the most I’d hoped for was to be able to take photographs through the wire fencing. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at dusk to find lights blazing in a newly renovated building. I went inside, ordered a coffee and walked along the verandahs, imagining the scene in World War Two when dozens of burnt patients were evacuated from Broome after the strafing of Dutch flying boats. It’s just one of the passages in my novel which was enriched by being able to walk through the old hospital rather than view it through holes in a fence. Thanks DOME, I love your policy of keeping our heritage alive by restoring historic buildings.
Old Port Hedland Hospital – image State Library of WA 
Dianne and Mayor Blanco
This entry was posted in Anzacs, Books, for teachers, historical fiction, In the Lamplight, Light Horse Boy, Lighthouse Girl, News, school visits and tagged Anzac, Bookweek, Bunbury Catholic College, In the Lamplight, librarians, Light Horse Boy, Lighthouse Girl, nursing, WWI on August 20, 2019.
