This post continues from We Will Remember Them: Albert Arthur Reader M.M. Part 1 France The HMT Corsican arrived in Marseille on 5 Apr 1916. After a short march from the wharves, they boarded a train, the troops cheering as it left the station. They travelled through picturesque countryside with olive groves, vineyards and blossoming fruit … Continue reading We Will Remember Them: Albert Arthur Reader M.M. Part 2
Australia 1914-1918
We Will Remember Them: Albert Arthur Reader M.M. Part 1
Albert Arthur Reader was born on 16 June 1888 at Plenty, a rural locality on the River Plenty, about five miles north-west of New Norfolk, Tasmania. His birth was registered by his mother, Hannah Woodhouse just over a month later. Hannah, born in Tasmania in July 1855, was the only child of two transported convicts, … Continue reading We Will Remember Them: Albert Arthur Reader M.M. Part 1
People mentioned in And The Women Watch and Wait
This is a list of the lesser known but real people who are mentioned in my novel And the Women Watch and Wait. It is a work in progress and I will be adding to it, slowly, over the next few months. So far, I have been unable to identify Private J Hopkins for whom … Continue reading People mentioned in And The Women Watch and Wait
Two Years of Reading – 2024 & 2025
For a variety of reasons that I can no longer remember, I failed to post my 2024 list of books read over that year. So, I am including those books here, along with my 2025 reading. My total for 2025 is only twenty-two books read, a third less than previous years because a large part … Continue reading Two Years of Reading – 2024 & 2025
A Soliloquy by Lance Corporal William O’Brien (1882-1936)
William O’BrienThe Queenslander 3 Oct 1914 p.28 A bluish haze in the far asternAnd galloping seas between,The last-long look at one’s native land,Where boyhood days we’ve seen.For our bows are dipped in smothering spray,Our course to the setting sun.We’re bound for the front, with foot and horse,And a-clanking steel and gun. The transport reels in … Continue reading A Soliloquy by Lance Corporal William O’Brien (1882-1936)
And the Women Watch and Wait
Today I released a new novel, And the Women Watch and Wait. It is set in Coburg, in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, between 1914 and 1919 and depicts the struggles of ordinary women left to watch and wait and pray during the four long years that their men were away fighting a war on … Continue reading And the Women Watch and Wait
One Minute Book Review – Citizen to Soldier: Australia Before the Great War : Recollections of Members of the First A.I.F. by J N I Dawes and L L Robson
Published in 1977, Citizen to Soldier draws together the recollections of soldiers who served during World War 1. These were collected as the result of an appeal made through newspapers in 1966. The soldiers' own words are woven into a very readable narrative. The book looks not only at the soldiers lives before the war … Continue reading One Minute Book Review – Citizen to Soldier: Australia Before the Great War : Recollections of Members of the First A.I.F. by J N I Dawes and L L Robson
Christmas 1914
Christmas 1914 is remembered mainly as the first of World War 1, and for the Christmas Truce on the Western Front when British and German soldiers met in No Man's Land and exchanged gifts, and even played games of football. As part of the British Empire, Australia too was at war but had not yet … Continue reading Christmas 1914
Military Music – Western Australia, September 1914
Recently, while attempting to find examples of songs and music from the Word War 1 period that were not military, I stumbled across this delightful photo (definitely a search fail but a wonderful find). Taken in September 1914 at Blackboy Hill camp, Western Australia, it shows Privates Leonard Darcy and John Pratley of the 3rd … Continue reading Military Music – Western Australia, September 1914
The First Anzacs
Often we think we know our country’s history, particularly if we are only one degree of separation from those who made that history. Many people of my age had grandfathers who fought in World War One. We have some of their stories, though often highly sanitized if they were told to us as children. I … Continue reading The First Anzacs
Catherine Meyrick 