Pattie Wright- Ray Parkin was a sailor first and foremost.  He then found himself a POW on the Thai Burma railway and in Japan. From those harrowing experiences came the highly regarded wartime trilogy Out of the Smoke, Into the Smother and The Sword and the Blossom.

Pattie Wright, interviewed Ray and accessed his diaries and extensive archive to write his recently published biography, Ray Parkin’s Odyssey. In this lecture Pattie speaks on this chronicler of HMAS Perth, his beloved ship and those who did and did not return.