A CHANEL TOMBOY

There’s a black and white photograph in a grouping above the bed in Jen Ballard’s cottage that goes some way towards explaining her remarkably diverse portfolio of passions. The picture shows Jen’s mother, Joan Louitt, a World War II nurse with the RAAF’s Medical Air Evacuation Transport Unit, based on the island Morotai in Indonesia. With her oxygen bottle and mask at the ready, the plucky nurse was responsible for the evacuation to New Guinea of “her boys”, sick and wounded soldiers returning on litters strapped into the bellies of the Douglas C-47s that were the front line transport of the time.

“Mum went