Denise Crooks WRAAC: From UK to Abrolhos
Posted on: Mon 1 Aug 2022
1950. Dunkirk Veteran Ron Crooks packed up his wife and two very young daughters and migrated to Western Australia for a better future. They had no idea of the amazing experiences ahead, beginning with heading for Kalgoorlie and finding themselves in Geraldton instead… then living and working on the remote Houtman Abrolhos Islands.
No doubt her early life taught Denise Crooks resilience, resourcefulness and determination, which certainly came the fore when at age 19 she joined the Australian Regular Army (WRAAC), then the Army Reserves and eventually had a successful business career in WA.
Denise tells us just some aspects of her life in a down-to-earth, captivating manner. Including when an angry anti-war mob tipped over the Army vehicle she was driving… with her in it.
In 2022 Australian Traveller says this about the Houtman Abrolhos Islands: There are few places wilder than the remote Houtman Abrolhos Islands, an archipelago of 122 islands located 60km off Geraldton on the west coast of Western Australia. It’s a place of beauty and harshness, of light and shadows, of wonder and adventure.
For more information including where to obtain Denise Crooks’ book click here
