Recollections of War

13/08/2026

A wonderful visit today from Jeffrey and Carol Peirce and Chris Handley.

Jeffrey and Chris have just published a book entitled 'GREAT WAR STORIES 1914-1919 LIGHT HORSEMEN & CAMELEERS of SOUTH WESTERN AUSTRALIA' and are currently touring the south west and south coast promoting it.

Here is the information provided by the authors about the book:

'Our book presents detailed short story biographies of more than 60 South Western Australian men who volunteered for service in the First World War.

You will become emotionally connected to the soldiers as you follow each man’s journey from birth until their final resting place.

So many of these previously untold stories highlight the men’s dedicated and devoted connection to family and their local communities; there are numerous role models for today’s and future generations.

Our South Western men were critically involved in a number of legendary battles, including Gallipoli, Egypt and Palestine. They often fought against overwhelming numbers of enemy on most rugged ground and in highly unfavourable climatic conditions.

Amongst these awe-inspiring stories, you will grasp the dedication, devotion to duty, exceptional bravery and inseparable mateship that thrust Australia onto the world stage. You will be consumed by some of the many courageous achievements of our South Western men, including:- -The Narrogin Dentist accepting the enemy surrender of Damascus, -The Kirup Farmer/Pastoralist who succeeded in stopping the Battle at The Nek Gallipoli, -The Cranbrook Brothers who died 30 minutes apart at the Battle of Hill 60 Gallipoli, -The Brunswick Junction Farmer who fought side by side at Hill 60 with Hugo Throssell VC, -The Pingelly Farmer who became a leading and vital 10LHR Scout, -The Bridgetown aboriginal soldier who served in both First and Second World Wars, -The Denmark Farmer and his miraculous escape at Gallipoli, -The Mount Barker Farmer who had 2 horses shot from underneath him in the same battle, -The Harvey Farmer who helped quell the Egyptian Rebellion in 1919, -The Dumbleyung Farmer who also served in the Boer War with Breaker Morant, -The Dardanup Rhodes Scholar killed in action during the Battle of The Nek Gallipoli.

Jeff PEIRCE and Chris HANDLEY are honoured to promote the lives of these inspirational men, whilst saluting their service to our Nation.

LEST WE FORGET.'

We will be going to see them speak at the Albany RSL on 28th August. Check out the Albany At Ease page for all of the details.

If you live locally, join us there!

Thanks to Jeffrey, his lovely wife and support crew, Carol, and Chris for visiting us today and donating a copy of the book to our library.

We hope to have copies of the book in our shop for sale very soon and can highly recommend it.

The dedication and research that has gone into it has been immense, and it highlights the service of local people doing their bit for our nation.

Lest we forget indeed.

06/08/2026

Haven't posted for a while, as we've been very busy with various activities.

John has been building and rearranging storerooms, and I have been head down, tail up cataloguing.

I am pleased to announce a milestone this week - I've done 1000 items on Collections WA! This is such a small percentage of what I have to do, but feels like I am making progress.

Along the way, I have learned so much about the people who owned the items we have in the collection, and also military and social history in general.

I love that by cataloguing things and making them available online, we are being contacted by people who have associations with the items in our collection.

Just yesterday, I received an email from a man whose grandmother's WWII Female Relatives Badge is here in a frame with photos and biographies of two of her sons who served. He lives locally and is keen to come over and photograph it.

We have also been communicating with an English woman whose grandfather's portraits are in a WWI album we have here. She was delighted to see them and only wished that her father was still alive to see them. He treasured his father's medals and wartime binoculars.

We also achieved a second milestone recently - over 500 followers! It is gratifying that so many people are interested in what we are doing.

Welcome to our newest followers and many thanks to all those who have been with us for the journey so far!

13/07/2026

It's funny how things come together.

In this case, some recent purchases and donations all tied in - some just good luck and others that could be called curation. However, you still have to see the things to buy them!

We have a longstanding interest in the rehabilitation of servicemen and women, and have many items made as occupational therapy. These include artwork, pottery, embroidery and leatherwork.

This particular subset all relate to those blinded due to their war service.

Edwin (Eddie) Bullen served as a mechanic in the RAAF during WWII. He was blinded when a tool fell on his head from above.

After the war, he was among a group of blinded soldiers taken by P&O liner to the UK, where he attended St Dunstan's (a British charity who supported blind and vision-impaired ex-service men and women) to be retrained for future employment. They were able to choose any trade or occupation.

They were also taken on outings by staff and volunteers. This included being taken for rides on tandem bicycles by members of the Red Cross.

Eddie's items were donated to us by a local Denmark family who were great friends with him. We have several works of pottery, some timber furniture items, his foldable white cane, some badges and a well used clock featuring Braille.

Pottery made by two other Australian ex-service men, Bill Reid (known as 'The blind potter of Burma') and Norman Wilkinson, are also held in the collection.

They were both taught how to make pottery at Concord Hospital in Sydney after WWII. Norman's story is told and illustrated in a book published by The Repatriation Commission called 'Blinded but unbeaten'.

Also shown is a Matrix Shorthand Braille Writer which was purpose built for institutions such as St Dunstan's to assist blinded WWI and WWII veterans in learning shorthand Braille. Once proficient, they could apply for administrative roles including telephony and transcription.

This particular machine was used by a British WWII veteran named Stan Grimsey who lost his sight as a POW in Thailand, and who resided at St Dunstan's. He lived a long life, and as with many of those blinded through war service, didn't let his disability prevent him from living a full life. Stan completed a half marathon at the age of 89!

The final item is a recently purchased WWI era autograph book in which there are many pages of Braille cells. These were kindly transcribed for us by a wonderful person named Sam from VisAbility WA.

It turned out that they were Braille versions of the original inscriptions written in the book, although often with a few extra details. We assume that the owner of the book, May, was vision impaired.

All of these things are tangible reminders of the often life changing effects of war service, both on veterans and their families.

19/06/2026

One of the things we enjoy the most is when we are contacted by people asking for information or images relating to items in the collection.

Last week, we catalogued an interesting identity disc and keepsake made from coins. It belonged to an Australian Army Nursing Service (A.A.N.S.) nurse named Eileen McNamara.

(Honora) Eileen Lilian McNamara was born on 22 August 1889 in Grenfell, New South Wales, the tenth child of 14 born to Timothy McNamara and Hanora Mary Conlon.

She was a 28 year old trained nurse when she enlisted with the Australian Army Nursing Service on 6 September 1917. Her sister, Kathleen Muriel, enlisted 4 days later and they both embarked on board the T.S.S. Wyreema from Sydney on 14 October 1918 bound for Salonika.

Due to the cessation of hostilities, the ship was recalled after arrival in South Africa, where it spent a couple of weeks before returning to Australia at the end of December.

By this time, cases of Spanish Influenza were increasing and a troopship (HMAT Boonah) which had recently arrived in Fremantle had hundreds of men on board who had contracted it.

When the Wyreema arrived in Fremantle not long afterwards, nursing volunteers were called for. Every one of the A.A.N.S. contingent aboard the Wyreema volunteered to look after the ailing men at the quarantine station at Woodman Point.

It is believed that Eileen was one of them. She was later awarded a 'Mentioned in Despatches'.

Two of Eileen's brothers, Leo and Ignatius, also served for Australia during World War One.

The date engraved on the half coin is 19 January 1919. The significance of this date is unknown but would coincide with time spent at the quarantine station. Perhaps the other half of the coin was given to a fellow nurse or patient as a keepsake or love token.

Anyway, back to the request...

We had purchased a postcard showing the T.S.S. Wyreema to put with the identity disc to add context to the display. The card was dated 1911 and related to when the ship was being used as a liner rather than a troopship.

The person who contacted us had recently bought a heritage home named 'Wyreema' and was wanting a good quality copy of the postcard to enlarge and hang on the wall in their new house.

We were more than happy to comply! It means that someone is actually looking at what we're cataloguing.

We are approaching 1000 items, but still have tens of thousands to go. It's a daunting and time consuming task, but we're plugging away.

If anyone who lives locally wants to help out, please get in touch!

18/06/2026

To all of our Albany friends - don't miss out on seeing this important production while you can.

It tells of a very dark time in our wartime history, but is portrayed with humour and compassion by a wonderfully talented group of actors, directors, producers, screenwriters and all support crew. The Theatre 180 family are the best!

Expect to be moved and definitely take your tissues!

ALBANY - only a couple of days until we return with 21 HEARTS: Vivian Bullwinkel and the Nurses of the Vyner Brooke.

With 2 performances this Saturday (20 June) at 11am and 5pm, there's still plenty of time to grab a ticket - but hurry tickets are selling fast.

We can't wait to be back in beautiful Albany with this extraordinary true story.

Tickets: https://shorturl.at/PZb1x

17/06/2026

Another recent purchase was a wonderful album full of named soldiers who served with the 2/33rd Infantry Battalion AIF.

Here is a composite photo showing over 40 men and a little dog named George - perhaps their mascot.

The photos were originally 6 to a page. The album was scanned and then individual portraits separated.

Aside from a few with nicknames (mostly politically incorrect these days), we have identified the rest with the help of a Nominal Roll on the website of the 2/33 Australian Infantry Battalion AIF.

We have shared them with the association to keep in their archive and will also submit them to the Virtual War Memorial Australia so that the images will be there for researchers, relatives and friends to see.

Although time consuming, it feels very worthwhile - keeping the memories of these men alive.

17/06/2026

A new acquisition headed straight to the Bomber Command room.

The metal and concrete relics came from a practice ‘bouncing bomb’ dropped into a British reservoir prior to the Dambusters Raid in mid-May 1943.

During preparation for the operation, 617 Squadron RAF (which included many Australian personnel) conducted extensive, low altitude practice drops into reservoirs and coastal ranges to perfect their release timing.

They used inert, concrete filled test bombs such as the one pictured from which the relics were obtained.

A fascinating piece of history!

05/06/2026

We recently bought a large group of ephemera from the Salvos Stores eBay shop and it arrived yesterday.

There are some very interesting items in the grouping, including this 4th Australian Divisional Artillery card which lists their engagements and exploits chronologically from 1916 until 1919.

The 4th Australian Divisonal Artillery comprised several brigades and batteries and this card was issued to commemorate the association between them prior to their separation in Belgium at the end of World War One.

Inside the card was a smaller card from a Gunner in the 4th Australian Divisional Artillery named James Hall.

There are 36 men with the surname Hall and first name James who enlisted in the A.I.F. and many more with a second name of James, so he is currently unidentified.

02/06/2026

Finally managed to produce some images from a set of WWI glass plate negatives purchased some time ago.

Many thanks to our good friend, Derris, for giving us a light box on which we photographed them.

All of these men were from South Australia and enlisted between September 1914 and May 1915.

They are from left to right (top) - Roy Edward GREEN, Ernest George WATSON and George Henry GALLACHER; and from left to right (bottom) - John GILLESPIE, Ernest Leslie GOLDSWORTHY and Louis Clive WOOD.

We hope to uncover all of their stories and keep their memory alive.

11/05/2026

More stunning photos. Makes our place look pretty good....