AustLit

Born in Newcastle, Yvonne Webb left school at eleven because of poor health. She began work at thirteen, during the Great Depression, and worked for two years in an office, and later as a salesgirl in a chain store. In her early twenties, she began working as a switchboard telephonist.

A protogee of Dame Mary Gilmore, she began submitting poetry to the Australian Women's Weekly with its inception, when she was sixteen, later collecting them into a single volume when she was 22. She later wrote a weekly radio feature, 'Those Whom We Take for Granted', which was broadcast nationally on the ABC's Children's Session.

Sources:

'Telephone Operator Who Is Also Girl Poet', Australian Women's Weekly, 26 August 1939, p.20.

'Yvonne Webb: Poet and Script-writer', North-Eastern Advertiser, 19 October 1943, p.1.