Prior to the war, the population of Alice Springs was approximately 450 people and so was a very small isolated community with little in the way of new occurrences. However this soon changed with the advent of war and the significant role that Alice Springs played. Almost overnight the children of Alice Springs awoke to a doubling of the civilian population and even more of a surprise was the up to 8,000 soldiers who were in "the Alice" on the way north.

Of course the soldiers had large quantities of materials and equipment which the children from the Outback had never seen before, including trucks, weapons, and so on. It was all very new and exciting for the children of the town as they had all of these different people and things to talk to and play with.

1936 - Alice Springs Doris Elliott and Bill, aged three and a half years (Image courtesy of Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory)

Also surprising to the children was the fact that their small Outback town which before the war housed just a few hundred people was transformed into a sprawling town consisting of a growing civilian population section and a large canvas-tent area on the eastern side of the Todd River.