Rowing against the tide

She's heard plenty of stories in her time, but it was the courageous life of Australian nurse Evelyn Marsden, Lisa Wilkinson tells The Weekly, that inspired her to write a book.

- WORDS BY LISA WILKINSON

The Titanic Story Of Evelyn was actually an idea that I came up with for my author husband, Peter FitzSimons, after we were both looking at a picture of the Titanic and I asked him, “Have you ever checked to see if there were any Australians on the Titanic?”

I thought that if there were, it might be a good basis for one of his books. Like me, he said, he’d never looked into it. So I began to investigate, and I was shocked to learn that there were six Australian-born passengers and crew onboard. But only one of them survived.

Her name was Evelyn Marsden, a 28-year-old woman from South Australia who was travelling the world as a nurse/stewardess on cruise ships.

She was also engaged to a handsome ship’s doctor, William Abel James, whom she’d met through her work and was soon to marry. I was completely intrigued.

I discovered that Evelyn had grown up an hour-and-a-half north of Adelaide in a tiny place called Hoyleton. The youngest of five children, as a teenager she’d hero-worshipped her oldest brother, Tommy. He taught her to horseride — not sidesaddle, as was the accepted practice for women at the time. Evelyn always rode astride, like Tommy, and quickly became an accomplished horsewoman. Much as her mother Annie was displeased, she nevertheless finally made her wilful youngest daughter a pair of culottes in order to save her dignity on the many afternoons she and Tommy went riding through the countryside.

Evelyn was also a champion rower and regularly made trips to Murray Bridge to row on the Murray River. Like everything Evelyn ever took on, she wanted to challenge herself, and unlike the others in the rowing club, Evelyn would always row against the tide.