As Pamela 'Margaret' Wilkinson walks the halls of RAAF Base Townsville's Building 51, her memories of working from the site as a Registered Nursing (RN) Officer more than 61 years ago are as sharp as if it were yesterday.
In a full-circle moment, 87-year-old Margaret is today a volunteer working from the same building, this time as an integral member of the History and Heritage - Air Force (HH-AF) team which has been working tirelessly since 2020 on a significant infrastructure and display refurbishment at the RAAF Townsville Aviation Heritage Centre (RTAHC).
"It brings back a lot of memories, being here, and there have been a lot of changes over the years," Margaret said. "A lot of people have no idea, really, until you tell them that this was an active RAAF base.
"It is important that people know the history, what used to happen here and how we went from a sleepy country town to a very large garrison city."
The RTAHC refurbishment honours the rich history of RAAF Base Townsville over the decades since it became operational in 1940.
Each exhibit has been painstakingly restored and curated, supported by an extraordinary level of military knowledge and experience that sits within the HH-AF team, who will be on-hand to guide visitors through the RTAHC.
Margaret will be among the volunteers staffing the RTAHC and, if you're lucky enough, you may hear first-hand about the major RAAF combined air-sea operation of 1965.
'I saw a notice on the door that said, "Volunteers please". So I thought, "OK. I'm going back to where I started from".'
"A signal came up from Canberra that there had been an explosion involving an international vessel, so they sent a Neptune out to find it," Margaret said.
"It was February 1965 and 26 Japanese seamen were eventually rescued 240 nautical miles east of Townsville, including two who were seriously burnt when their vessel exploded.
"They'd covered them with cabbage leaves. The leaves were too difficult to remove so they could not be bandaged. All that could be done was to make them as comfortable as possible for the long journey back to land."
Margaret's colleague, RN Isabelle 'Jick' Service, was awarded an Associate of the Royal Red Cross for air-sea rescue for her efforts in the mission.
It is clear Margaret's work with HH-AF is a love letter of sorts and a constant reminder of where she met her soulmate Jick, with the two spending more than five decades as life partners before Jick's passing in 2014.
It was Jick's niece Rosalind Service who encouraged Margaret to take her precious memories and artefacts to HH-AF in 2017.
"Ros kept telling me to take it up to the museum," Margaret said.
"Eventually, to get her off my back, I did. I dropped everything off and as I was going out to leave, I saw a notice on the door that said, 'Volunteers please'. So I thought, 'OK. I'm going back to where I started from'."
The RTAHC is open to the public each Tuesday and Thursday between 9am and noon, and every Sunday from 9am to 3pm.
