Arts / Women weigh up the price of war

A GROUP of Queensland women have completed a musical project documenting the emotional stories of the wives and widows of Australian soldiers.

Each song of “The Soldier’s Wife” focuses on a different story; tales of husbands killed in battle, of men returning home with PTSD and of children watching on.

One song is about dropping a toddler into the car, just a snippet of everyday life, but telling the story from one woman’s point of view.

I’m talking to Roz Pappalardo, veteran vocal Queensland teacher, singer and songwriter who is best known as part of the Queensland contemporary folk duo, Women in Docs. She’s familiar with Canberra from many a National Folk Festival.

In recent years she’s been especially busy, but when when asked by her good friend and the creator of “The Soldier’s Wife”, Deb Suckling, to join the project she dropped everything.

“Deb knew that I had a strong history of working in the community with kids, in Arnhem Land with elders in indigenous communities, with women in detention centres and with young women in jail – I’d got a bit of a reputation for working around people who have a hidden story to tell,” she tells “CityNews” by phone from Brisbane.

Pappalardo believes that “song is a great healer and a great communicator that breaks down barriers” and testifies to the extraordinary age range of storytellers over the last year and a half.

They’ve talked to a young woman with two kids and a traumatised husband and a young woman who lost a husband in a recent conflict. “Women didn’t think people would care about their stories, but they all interested me,” she says.

The format of the concert is casual, she says. One songwriter tells a story and presents a song and then introduces the next songwriter, but the finale has the whole group telling a single story together.

She’s got two songs in the show. One, “Let the Chain Up”, came straight from her grandmother, who died last year.

“It tells the story of when my grandfather went to World War II and left her in a tiny village… her job was to watch the train and when the train came in to watch the troops – she would be looking for him every day,” she says.

“Another family tale, told by a woman from Chinchilla, tells the story of Giovanni, who jumped off a war boat heading for Africa just before the boat exploded.”

“The Soldier’s Wife”, at The Street Theatre, 7.30pm, August 6, bookings to thestreet.org.au or 6247 1223.

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