Lest We Forget (3/4)

Sid was in the second landings at ANZAC Cove. He survived. He survived in the gullies, and ravines for just over a week. At the end of the first week of May, 6th Btn B Coy was sent as part of the Second Infantry Brigade down for the Second Battle of Krithia at Helles. He survived the 6th May, and the 7th May, and until 1730 hours on 8th May when the Brigade was given 35 minutes warning that it was about to join the attack. The Australians were to advance along Fir Tree Spur between the right flank of the New Zealand brigade and the edge of Krithia Nullah, and had to travel up to 730 m from their reserve position just to reach the start line at "Tommy's Trench". The brigade managed to advance a further 460 m beyond the start line, suffering 50% casualties in the process. Sid was one of these'

Meanwhile, back at the farm his father, Robert, waited. Four of his brothers - Percival, Arthur, George, and William - waited. One of his brothers, Harold, could wait no longer and enlisted. His three sisters - Esther, Victoria, and Ida - waited. His waiting mother - Caroline Elizabeth - qualified to wear the Female Relatives Badge, with bar because two of her sons were serving. Pity that just a year later she died of degeneration of the heart.

This post is dedicated to: Sydney Eversley Ferres (born 1889) 6th Batallion, B Coy, AIF Enlisted 31 August, 1914 Killed in Action 8th May, 1915 Body left in the field, commemmorated at Cape Helles, Turkey Nephew of my great-grandfather, John Bennett Tonkin My first cousin, twice removed.

Note: These are my shots of original images in the Australian War Memorial. The image of the soldier REPRESENTS Sid, but is not Sid. Sid was #194 to enlist into B Coy. This unknown soldier was #192. No one in the Ferres family has been able to source an image of Sydney Eversley Ferres.

Each year, in early spring, I spend an afternoon in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. It is a sombre afternoon, with much shaking of head, wrinkling of brow, and heart-felt gratitude.

Lest We Forget (2/4)

Unlike now, there was a slender thread of communication between each theatre of war and the home front. Nowadays, soldiers ring their mother from the chopper airlifting them to MedVac.

Gallipoli and The Somme were unheard of prior to 1915. Those who waited at home received nothing for months on end. Basic materials for the task were not easy to come by. In June and July 1915 there was a paper shortage on Gallipoli, so the soldiers became quite inventive in their attempts to keep in contact with their families and friends. Sapper John Howes of the 3rd Light Horse Signal Troop was so keen to write home that he cut off a piece of his uniform sending it like a postcard.

Each year, in early spring, I spend an afternoon in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. It is a sombre afternoon, with much shaking of head, wrinkling of brow, and heart-felt gratitude.

This post is dedicated to: William George Cole Riddle (born 1883) Royal Welsh Fusiliers Enlisted 1916 Killed in Action 8th October, 1918 Buried Bois-des-Angles British Cemetery, Calais, France My second cousin, twice removed The grand-nephew of my Great-great-grand-father, Stephen Cole

Note: These are my shots of the original image in the Australian War Memorial. The badge of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers I sourced here.

Lest We Forget (1/4)

This is Peter Corlett's 1989 diorama, "Man in the Mud" in the WW1 Gallery.

The diorama consists of a very large, curved photomural of a desolate landscape of guns, broken equipment and mud. Mud is everywhere. The foreground is a muck heap of mud, a broken duckboard and polluted water. On a little hummock sits a soldier in deep despair, elbows on knees, his face in his hands. What this soldier has seen, cannot be unseen. He will see this scene for the rest of his life, whether his eyes be open or shut. Eternal vigilance.

Each year, in early spring, I spend an afternoon in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. It is a sombre afternoon, with much shaking of head, wrinkling of brow, and heart-felt gratitude.

This post is dedicated to: Claude Gosford Honeyman (1891-1940) D Coy, 1st Battalion, AIF Enlisted 31 Aug 1914 Gallipoli Lone Pine Pozieres The Somme Discharged "Medically Unfit", 25 June, 1918 1st cousin of my Great-Grand-Father

Taphophile Tragics - Hen wlad fy nhadau

The memory is easy to dredge up: a run-down shack sitting atop of road-cutting, the living room gloomy and black, in the centre a wood stove with a massive pot of soup bubbling. Bending over is a stick-figure of a woman in dark clothing, with a large nose, and a strange-sounding voice. But this is overlaid with two more flashes: throwing up in the passenger well of a 1949 Holden FX; and, visiting cemeteries. Always. Every weekend. Visiting cemeteries. I was anything from 2 years to 8 years.

And the cemetery was Point Clare, and the grave was this one: Anglican, Section 8, Row 14, Plot 3. Plot 4 was there, but not inhabited until thirty years later. Solid, isn't it? And dark. And gloomy. Margaret Olwen Selby, nee Hughes: my maternal grandmother. Dead aged 55 years, from a massive stroke.

Which takes me back to the 'land of my fathers' (Hen wlad fy nhadau). It sounds as Welsh as one can get: Margaret Olwen Hughes. From Towyn in Merionithshire, but working 'in service' in London when she meets a miniscule Australian 'digger' simply trying to survive. The Australian government ships her out on a war-bride ship early in 1920 and she marries Cecil Roy Selby in the May, my mother, Olwen Dorothy, being born in the July of 1921. Life doesn't get easier: the emphysema from the gassing in the trenches is compounded by the multi-pack a day habit (except they were Craven-A roll-yer-owns), and the genetic predisposition to imbibing the amber liquid.

Her expectations were not high: but higher than working below stairs in London; higher than not-working beneath the slag-heaps of Towyn. A son came along three years later, and a 'mistake' 14 years after that. She lives beside the railway tracks in Tempe: two brothers-in-law in the same street; and a father-in-law who shunts from house to house, a season at a time. The memorial is hard to read, covered in black mould, sans fleurs, sans attention.

I want to yell out 'But, she wasn't a bloody Anglican, she was a raving Baptist', but who am I, a mere teller of tales, to argue with the wisdom of the times. For the record the photographs are: Top: Left Olwen Dorothy and Margaret Olwen - Both known as Olie the memorial to Margaret Olwen Selby in Point Clare Cemetery Left: Cecil Roy Selby gets some height, his daughter on the right The inscription: to my dear wife and our mother Margaret's birth certificate, and a card to her newly married daughter Ode to the best organised little cemetery 'in the world'

This is my contribution to the Taphophile Tragics community.