 An important element of the plot revolves around a central character who fabricates her identity based on the description of Ayres on the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, with some of the film's scenes shot around the memorial.Alice Ayres was born into a large family in 1859, the seventh of ten children of a labourer, John Ayres.In December 1877, her sister Mary Ann (older than Alice by eleven years) married an oil and paint dealer, Henry Chandler.