sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Remembrance Day

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Today is Remembrance Day and, like many other people in Australia and around the world, at 11 am I will stop and remember all those who have died in war.

Although we can do this any time, Australians have two particular days on which they do particularly pause to remember – ANZAC Day, April 25 and Remembrance Day, November 11. While the first is important, the special thing about Remembrance Day is that it isn’t just Australians who do it, and it isn’t just Australians we remember. Remembrance Day is observed on the date that the armistice was signed to end hostilities in Word War 1, and is observed around the world – in countries including Canada, Britain, France and more. In the USA it’s known as Veteran’s Day.

I love the idea that around the world people are stopping and thinking of the lives that have been lost, the lives changed, the lives wasted by war. It’s important that we rememember – not to glorify war, not to celebrate ‘victories’ (does anyone ever win in war?) but so that, in remembring the past we remind ourselves of the need to keep working for peace.

All the men, women and children who have died must mean something and, as world citizens, we need to be striving to make the world a better place.

Lest We Forget.

 

Back Home: The Importance of the Home Front

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While the majority of the action in Australia’s Great War: 1915 takes place at Gallipoli, a really important part of the book is the communication between Stanley and his twin sister, Elizabeth, who is back at home in Bunbury. Stanley writes to Elizabeth and shares his experiences and, importantly, his feelings about them. Elizabeth, in turn, tells Stanley about the things that are happening – big and small – at home, as well as her concerns about Stanley’s wellbeing.

About 420 000 Australian men and women served in World War I. Almost every one of those people had loved ones at home – wives, parents, children, siblings. They came from communities in which they each played their own roles before the war – in employment, in sporting teams, in social life, as volunteers.

So, while the war was raging overseas, in Australia life was different too. Parents worried. Wives fretted. Siblings tried to filled gaps. Employers tried to carry on their business without their workers, and had to train new staff. Communities changed. Perhaps most significantly, children grew up without their fathers. And all of these people, of course, mourned when lives were lost.

When I hit upon the idea of making Stanley, my main character, a young teacher, I knew this could give me an opportunity to show what life was like on the home front, through his classroom. Because of course while Stan was away at the war, his pupils would still be at school. Wondering who his replacement teacher might be, I hit upon the idea of a twin sister, also a teacher, taking over his class.

Then as I started to write I realised that it wouldn’t just be Stanley who Elizabeth and their students would be linked to, because it would be likely that the students themselves would also have family members, friends or neighbours off at the war. So I created the characters of Miles Parker – who fights alongside Stan – and his sons, back home in Elizabeth’s classroom. This was to provide some of the most emotionally difficult material for me to write as I considered the impact of the war on two young boys.

Of course lots of the details about the home front that are part of the book are seemingly small things – dances, engagements, changing seasons – because life at home did go on, but also because when you are far away from home you like to know what’s happening there. Elizabeth keeps Stanley informed about these things as much, or more, than she does about major happenings. But Elizabeth’s role is not incidental or trivial: it is a key part of the story. Without a home to miss, a country to be fighting for, the war would be meaningless to those who were there.

 

Real Characters

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While Australia’s Great War: 1915 is a work of fiction, not all of the characters are made up. Several of them are based on real people who served in the Great War. By populating the story in part with fictionalised versions of these famous people, I hope to keep their memories and their parts in history alive. Of course, with my main characters being made up, the interactions they have with the ‘real’ characters must also be made up, but they are based on things which could have happened.

So, who are these real characters?

  • Charles Bean, Australia’s official war correspondent, who Stanley meets several times, eventually helping him compile the Anzac Book .
  • Simpson (John Simpson Kirkpatrick), the stretcher bearer famous for ferrying the wounded on his donkey, who Stanley meets just once, and later commemorates with a poem.
  • John Monash, who Stanley doesn’t meet, but whose tactics and actions he discusses with Bean.
  • Jim (James) Martin, the youngest known Australian to die in service, who was just fourteen when he died. Stanley meets Jim on board the stricken boat the Southland

Finally it’s time to let you in on a little secret. There are some much less famous real people embedded in the story. My own grandfather, Jim (James ) Adam, who served in the war, on the western front, is mentioned in one of Elizabeth’s letters. My husband’s grandmother, Audrey Chadd is also mentioned, playing the piano for a dance Elizabeth goes to. Though this couldn’t have happened – she was only a year old at the time – the Chadd family (her inlaws) were in business in Bunbury at the time, and Audrey, when she grew up, did play her piano for dances and events around Bunbury for many years. She even played at my wedding! There are a few other little hidden bits in the story that are my own little homage to family history.

Famous or not, it is important to remember that everyone who went away to war was a real person who did their bit, big or small. As such, retelling the stories of those terrible times commemorates them all.

sallymurphy.com.au