Identity card : Miss M Dircks, Voluntary Aid Detachment

Civilian Registration Identity Card Form CR 3 posted from Ashfield, NSW on 6 April 1942 to Margaret Dircks of Strathfield, NSW. Card number N18 F17 13559; the numbers written in ink. A paper posting label is pasted to the lower right. The original label has been pasted over with Margaret's new (married) address. The words 'Married at Strathfield / 15/7/1944 / to David Kenneth Williamson' has been typed in the top right and authorised with a purple signature stamp. The reverse has been signed and witnessed in ink by Helen Dircks while the lower left corner bears four lines of serial numbers written in ink.

Issued to Margaret 'Peg' Dircks of Strathfield, NSW. Dircks studied science at Sydney University and graduated in 1937; during the war she worked for the soap makers Lever Brothers in their chemical laboratory at Alexandria, Sydney. She had met David Kenneth Caird Williamson at university and they married on 5 July 1944; he worked at Shell Petroleum in a reserved occupation. Margaret Dircks joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) in early 1942 and was one of the first two women to volunteer as ambulance drivers in New South Wales. Her family relates that in order to practice driving, she borrowed a David Jones delivery truck and drove it around Sydney until she felt confident in her abilities.