Federal Secretary

Kristen Alexander

Kristen Alexander was born and grew up in Orange, NSW. After living and working Sydney for ten years she moved to Canberra in 1993. She loves Canberra and has no intention of moving elsewhere. She is a former public servant and for the last nine years she and her husband David have been running a second-hand book business specialising in Australian military history. This specialty came about initially because of Kristen’s enthusiasm for reading (home front accounts, women’s experiences, prisoner of war experiences and bomber command accounts) and later when they purchased a mail order military book business.

Despite Kristen’s love and enthusiasm for military history, she actually came to it quite late in life. As with many significant events, she can recall clearly the precise moment of enlightenment. It was in 1995, during the commemorations for the 50th year after the end of World War II. She was watching a British commemoration concert, where Dame Vera Lyn sang the old wartime melodies, and the Queen Mother received such warm and loving acknowledgement of the important role she and the King played during the London blitz. As Dame Vera sang, Kristen wondered how the British coped with the constant bombardment from the enemy. The next day, she went out and bought her first book of home front accounts. The first of many. From British home front accounts, she moved to the Australian home front, through women’s experiences in World War II (particularly nurses and prisoners of war) and moved on to Bomber Command. For the last few years, her reading interests have revolved around a certain World War II fighter pilot and her biography of Clive Caldwell which was published in 2006.

Kristen joined the Society in mid-2001 and has contributed the odd article and is also a some-time reviewer of social military history for Sabretache. She served as Secretary of the ACT Branch from February 2002. She joined Federal Council in November 2002 and took over as Federal Secretary in October 2003. She held both Federal Council and ACT Branch Secretary positions concurrently until mid 2004 when she resigned as ACT Branch Secretary to focus more on her business and writing activities. Luckily for the Society and Federal Council (or perhaps unluckily, depending on your perspective) she still manages to find time to continue as Federal Secretary!

Page last updated on: 19/03/08

For queries regarding this website contact the MHSA Webmaster