Meg Coten Memoirs

Before she passed away, my mother, Meg Coten, wrote a book about her extraordinary life. We have privately published it, and it's available here for you to download free of charge. There is also information about our family history, and about my father and his family. We wanted this information to be publicly available to anyone who would like it.

We’ve collated a range of information for you here. Feel free to browse the items below.

Meg Coten as a young woman, smiling, in a wide-brimmed hat and a collared uniform shirt

Meg's book

Free to download

Mum’s life story in her own words, from the family farm at Highbury to radar operations in World War 2, Europe after the war and raising a family in the outback.

Read about the book

Appendices and information

Free to download

Articles written by and about Mum, from her 1964 New Idea story about life in a tent on the Nullarbor to her obituary in The West Australian.

Browse the appendices

Finding John Coten's family

The search for our father’s story

For most of our lives, Dad’s past was a mystery. How we found out who he really was, and the family in New Zealand we never knew we had.

Read the story

Photos and images

34 photos

Photos from Mum’s life, from her WAAAF portrait to her 90th birthday, and Jim’s visit to Towera Station in 2020.

See the photos

Would you like to discuss more about the family?

If you have a question, a story to share or information about our family, I'd love to hear from you.

Email Ned