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Bum scare! Hospital evacuated over man with WWI explosive up his backside

<p>A hospital has been evacuated after a senior citizen arrived with a World War One explosive lodged in his rectum. </p> <p>The 88-year-old presented to the Hospital Sainte Musse in Toulon, France, to have the artillery removed, but instead triggered a "bomb scare" that saw the hospital partially evacuated. </p> <p>“An emergency occurred from 9pm to 11.30pm on Saturday evening that required the intervention of bomb disposal personnel, the evacuation of adult and paediatric emergencies as well as the diversion of incoming emergencies,” a hospital spokesperson stated.</p> <p>“We had to manage the risk in a reactive framework,” the rep added. “When in doubt, we took all the precautions.”</p> <p>Bomb disposal experts at the scene believed there was little chance the bomb would explode inside the patient. </p> <p>“They reassured us by telling us that it was a collector’s item from the First World War, used by the French military,” the hospital stated.</p> <p>Stunned doctors subsequently began the process of trying to remove the object, which measured almost 20cm long and more than 5cm wide, from the man’s rectum.</p> <p>“An apple, a mango, or even a can of shaving foam, we are used to finding unusual objects inserted where they shouldn’t be,” one doctor declared. “But a shell? Never!”</p> <p>Medics were forced to take the elderly man into surgery, cutting open his abdomen in order to remove the antique relic.</p> <p>According to the hospital, he is now in “good health” and is expected to make a full recovery from the surgery.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Twitter</em></p>

Body

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WWI diary returns home after 100 years

<p dir="ltr">A diary containing photos that are more than 100 years old gifted to nurse will be returning to its rightful owners.</p> <p dir="ltr">On Remembrance Day, Jon Ray will board a plane with the diary of a Belgian soldier who fought in WWI which chronicles life in the trenches from 1914 to 1917, helping it make the journey back to the soldier’s family.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-f752207b-7fff-a51a-a3d3-6d6dbc22e630"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">The diary came to be in Ray’s collection and in his family’s possession for the last 100 years after it was gifted to one of his ancestors.</p> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/2022/11/ww1-diary1.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="720" /></p> <p dir="ltr">"The diary basically was gifted to my grandmother Clara - Clara Carter - right towards the end of the First World War by a French-speaking Belgian soldier by the name of Jules Geldoff," he told 9News.</p> <p dir="ltr">While he doesn’t know how Geldoff met his grandmother, Ray’s best guess is that it was during her time as a nurse in northern England.</p> <p dir="ltr">"We're thinking probably late '17 is probably the time he might've been injured or something's happened to him and he's obviously given it to her," he said.</p> <p dir="ltr">At the end of the war, Geldoff and his diary would end up on opposite sides of the world.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-2b4da999-7fff-c7e2-caff-22f40644104f"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">While Geldoff became an architect, Carter married an Australian soldier, bringing the diary with her to Broken Hill in New South Wales.</p> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/2022/11/ww1-diary2.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="720" /></p> <p dir="ltr">Now, the diary will be heading back to its owner’s family with the help of a researcher and the Belgian embassy.</p> <p dir="ltr">"Through assistance from a researcher in Brussels, and the Belgian embassy in Canberra, we've managed to locate his closest living relatives in a place called Muskron in Belgium," Ray said.</p> <p dir="ltr">The diary contains priceless photographs depicting life during the war, including downtime, the war-torn towns Geldoff and his fellow soldiers encountered, and being on the front line.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-c53534fe-7fff-f629-879f-50e63e48f1e3"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: 9News</em></p>

Travel Trouble

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“An amazing story”: Karl uncovers his family’s ties to war

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In a special episode of the </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Today</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> show, Karl and Ally have been given a rare insight into their family histories during World War I and World War II.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The TV hosts sent information about their family trees to Ancestry, with Karl making a surprise discovery about his grandfather.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Karl knew his grandfather, Dragic Stefanovic, was captured by Germans during World War II, but he didn’t know what Dragic’s experience as a prisoner of war was like.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He found out that Dragic was a captive for four years before being moved to a displaced persons camp.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dragic was working and studying while in the camp to support his young son and wife, who he met in a prisoner of war camp.</span></p> <p><img style="width: 0px; height:0px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7845528/today-war1.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/75c15518292743f1aeb47fd6199fb993" /></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Karl uncovered details about how his grandparents met in a prisoner of war camp in Germany. Image: National Archives of Australia</span></em></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He applied for his wife and son to move into the camp with him, but Ancestry discovered that his application was likely rejected because Dragic was from Yugoslavia and his wife was German.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“You can see records of him applying to go back home to Yugoslavia but they rejected him,” Ancestry’s Madeleine Wilson </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://9now.nine.com.au/today/ancestry-karl-and-ally-given-captivating-insight-into-family-history/67c5081a-02ae-4124-9052-3bab131a392a" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">said</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> on the show.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We can only assume it was on political grounds because his wife was German and he was captured by the German Nazis.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We assume that’s what actually led to him applying to live in Australia and he ultimately became one of the 170,000 displaced people that called Australia home after the war.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Karl’s grandparents eventually settled in Wollongong with their son.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“It is an amazing story,” Karl said.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Meanwhile, Ally discovered that her great uncle, Francis Evan Perrett, volunteered to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force during World War I. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He was also in the 15th Battalion which was known for their efforts on the frontline in Gallipoli.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ally’s Ancestry results also uncovered a surprise about her great uncle’s service.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Francis broke camp and disappeared one night for about 12 hours, and lost a day’s pay as punishment.</span></p> <p><img style="width: 0px; height:0px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7845529/today-war2.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/468c5f1c173b4ecebfc3f07834599962" /></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ally discovered more about her great uncle’s service in World War I, and the day he ‘played hooky’ at Anzac Cove. Image: National Archives of Australia</span></em></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ms Wilson said he may have wanted to get away from the camp for a night after arriving into Anzac Cove, having witnessed the bombardment of one of the ships that arrived before his.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“You can only imagine the thoughts going through his mind knowing he was heading to the same place. He saw that bombardment of the troops. He landed on the ground, Anzac Cove, about 12 hours later,” she said.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“He ended up serving for six months on the frontline and, unfortunately, in the end, he was killed in action in May in 1915.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Unfortunately Ancestry couldn’t determine how Francis died or where he was buried.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He is among the many soldiers commemorated at Lone Pine Memorial. Ancestry found a receipt of service that was signed by his father, who went on to receive a pension of $70 a year for the rest of his life.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ally was emotional when she found out about her great uncle.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“This is so beautiful,” she said.</span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image: Today</span></em></p>

News

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How WWI soldiers stitched their lives back together through embroidery

<p><em><strong>Emily Brayshaw is a lecturer of Fashion and Design History, Theory and Thinking at the University of Technology Sydney.</strong></em></p> <p>Albert Biggs, a labourer from Sydney who enlisted in the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/dawn/empire/aif/" target="_blank">Australian Imperial Force</a></strong></span> under the name Alfred Briggs, was 23 when he arrived in Gallipoli on 22 August 1915.</p> <p>Biggs, as part of the second reinforcements for the 20th battalion, fought to defend the Anzac trenches on the ridge known as Russell’s Top, from where the ill-fated 3rd Light Horse Brigade had launched their attack for the Battle of the Nek. His battalion was evacuated to Egypt in December 1915 and sent to the Western Front the following April.</p> <p>Biggs was awarded the Military Medal for “great initiative and bravery” at Lagnicourt on <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/REL45131/" target="_blank">15 April 1917</a></strong></span>, but he was severely wounded at the second battle of Bullecourt on 5 May. Shrapnel flew into his left knee, leaving it permanently fused, and his right humerus was shattered. This damaged the nerves in his arm so badly that he could scarcely use his <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/blog/2014/07/30/stitches-time-rehabilitation-embroidery-awm-collection/" target="_blank">right hand</a></strong></span>.</p> <p>Biggs spent nearly 12 months in hospital in Rouen, France, before being moved to the Tooting Military Hospital in London, where he was first encouraged to take up embroidery. He returned to Sydney in September 1918 and spent almost two years at the 4th Australian General Hospital at Randwick (where the Prince of Wales Hospital stands today), and convalescent homes. He was discharged from the army in 1920.</p> <p>Biggs was one of more than <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/ww1/" target="_blank">156,000 Australian men</a></strong></span> who were wounded, gassed, or taken prisoner during the first world war. Like many of his comrades, however, it is also likely that he suffered from some form of <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://theconversation.com/from-shell-shock-to-ptsd-a-century-of-invisible-war-trauma-74911" target="_blank">shell shock</a></strong></span>.</p> <p>Many of the hospitals tending the wounded during and after the War provided bright, clean, quiet environments where the men could perform meditative, transformative work that was essential to their rehabilitation from their physical and mental wounds.</p> <p>One such activity was embroidery, also known as “fancy work”. Embroidery was <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://academic.oup.com/jdh/article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jdh/epw043/2333849/The-work-of-masculine-fingers-the-Disabled?redirectedFrom=fulltext" target="_blank">widely</a></strong></span> used as a form of therapy for British, Australian, and New Zealand soldiers wounded in the War - challenging the gendered construct of it as “women’s work” that was <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://journalofmoderncraft.com/category/table-of-contents/page/4" target="_blank">ubiquitous</a></strong></span> throughout the 19th century.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img width="237" height="372" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/37895/embroidery-in-text-1.jpg" alt="Embroidery In Text 1 (1)"/></p> <p style="text-align: center;" align="center"><em>Embroidery depicting a French farmhouse, stitched by 2626 Private William George Hilton. Image credit: Australian War Memorial.</em></p> <p>Hospitals in England, France, Australia, and New Zealand all offered embroidery therapy and important examples of the soldiers’ work can be found in places such as the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://allthatremains.net.nz/2014/09/recuperation-new-trades-and-crafts-aid-recovery/" target="_blank">TePapa Museum</a></strong></span> in Wellington, New Zealand, the Australian War Memorial Museum and St Paul’s Cathedral in London, where the beautiful embroidered <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/stpaulslondon/sets/72157645431808070/" target="_blank">Altar Frontal</a></strong></span> was created by <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.stpauls.co.uk/history-collections/history/ww1/the-men-of-the-altar-frontal" target="_blank">wounded</a></strong></span> soldiers from the UK, Australia, Canada, and South Africa.</p> <p>Themes of the soldiers’ embroidery ranged from military heraldry to scenes from the French countryside to pieces for their sweethearts.</p> <p>The 4 AGH in Randwick had vast recreation facilities to help with soldiers’ rehabilitation and occupational therapy. Staff encouraged Biggs to resume embroidery to pass the time and develop the fine motor skills in his left hand.</p> <p>Individual embroidery was an excellent past-time for the wounded soldiers; it is a small, flat, quiet, intimate activity that can be conducted seated, either in a group or alone. The classes at 4 AGH were taught by volunteers and, as Lieutenant Colonel CLS Mackintosh noted, helped the patients, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-5244279/view?partId=nla.obj-5249236#page/n49/mode/1up/search/craft" target="_blank">“to forget that they have any great disability.” </a></strong></span></p> <p>The Australian War Memorial holds at least four examples of Biggs’ embroidery. One, which he completed while at the hospital in Randwick, shows a cushion with the 1912 Australian coat of arms sewn in stem, long, and satin stitch onto a black background.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img width="498" height="530" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/37896/embroidery-in-text-2_498x530.jpg" alt="Embroidery In Text 2"/></p> <p style="text-align: center;" align="center"><em>The full cushion bearing the Australian coat of arms sewn by Albert Biggs. Image credit: Australian War Memorial.</em></p> <p>From what we know about Biggs’ service, we can surmise that this choice of embroidery pattern was bound to a constancy in his identity throughout his army experiences. Once a labourer, the war had made him a soldier, a war hero, and an invalid but he remained, above all, Australian.</p> <p>Biggs’s niece transformed several pieces of his embroidery into cushion covers. The back of the coat of arms cushion features six colourful, embroidered butterflies. The butterfly is a Christian symbol of hope and of the resurrection, because of its three stages of life. The butterfly is also associated with Psalm 119:50, “This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.”</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img width="497" height="475" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/37897/embroidery-in-text-3_497x475.jpg" alt="Embroidery In Text 3"/></p> <p style="text-align: center;" align="center"><em>Six multi-coloured butterflies embroidered on the back of the cushion cover decorated with the Australian coat of arms by Lance Corporal Alfred Briggs (Albert Biggs), 20 Battalion, AIF. Image credit: Australian War Memorial.</em></p> <p>Biggs also created a piece with <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/REL45129/" target="_blank">six gold daisies and four sprays of red berries</a></strong></span> and a <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/REL45132/" target="_blank">piece</a></strong></span> with a King’s crown with crossed Union flag and Australian ensign, all within a laurel wreath. A scroll bearing the words, “For England home and beauty” sits above the piece; and a scroll reading “Australia will be there” below, but the rest of the pattern is <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/REL45132/" target="_blank">unfinished</a></strong></span>.</p> <p>Creating these delicate works was a great achievement for Biggs as the skill would have taken him years to master; it is not unlike a right-handed person learning to write again neatly with their left hand.</p> <p>The soldiers’ work also created economic opportunities. Their embroidery and other ornaments were sold at the Red Cross Hospital Handicrafts Shop in Sydney where visitors were <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-38800899/view?partId=nla.obj-38810582#page/n34/mode/1up/search/fancy+work" target="_blank">encouraged to</a></strong></span> “purchase the work of returned soldiers to help them help themselves”. The Red Cross also supplied printed templates for embroidery, many of which bore patriotic messages, such as the piece that Biggs left uncompleted.</p> <p>One hundred years later, the story of Biggs’ bravery in Gallipoli and France has been stitched into the broader <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://creativeapproachestoresearch.net/wp-content/uploads/CAR6_2_FULL1.pdf" target="_blank">“mythscape”</a></strong></span> that surrounds Anzac Day. His embroidery, however, speaks to us of the quiet courage and dignity of Australia’s soldiers as they tried to mend their shattered lives following World War I.</p> <p>And interestingly, two recent studies have helped articulate the rationale for rehabilatation embroidery. <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://experts.umn.edu/en/publications/everyday-creative-activity-as-a-path-to-flourishing" target="_blank">One</a></strong></span> has demonstrated that undertaking everyday craft activities is associated with emotional flourishing, revealing the importance of handcrafts to their makers. <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://journalofmoderncraft.com/category/table-of-contents/page/4" target="_blank">Another study</a></strong></span> has shown that embroidery and sewing can allow individuals to work through mental trauma associated with war.</p> <p>Highlighting the practice of rehabilitation embroidery gives us new ways to remember Biggs and the 416,809 Australian men who served in WWI. The stories they stitched into their embroidery allow us to remember them as we grow old.</p> <p><em>Written by Emily Brayshaw. First appeared on <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.theconversation.com" target="_blank">The Conversation.</a></span></strong></em><img width="1" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/76326/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation"/></p>

Retirement Life

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My dad wrote this letter to me from the frontline – I was 18 months old at the time

<p><em><strong>Lynette Flinn, 73, shares a very special letter that her father wrote her when she was just 18 months old whilst he was fighting in New Guinea during World War II. </strong></em> </p> <p>This letter was written to me by my father whilst stationed in New Guinea, around the year 1944. I was only 18 months old when my father wrote this letter to me to explain his decision to become a soldier in case he didn’t return home. He thankfully did, and lived to be 90.</p> <p align="center">***</p> <p>TO MY BABY DAUGHTER:</p> <p>Dearest Lynette</p> <p>The thought has just struck me that you are fast approaching the age when you must be trying to puzzle out why your Dad is not around. I feel that some sort of explanation is due to you, so just in case I am not around in later years to explain personally I am putting my case before you in the hope that you will forgive me not being there with your dear mother to attend to the thousand and one favours that a young lady like you most certainly deserves.</p> <p>When you were quite a tiny baby and lived in a little world all of your own, your Father decided to become a soldier, though to be honest at the time, he wasn't quite sure he was doing the right thing by you and your Mother.</p> <p>But a voice inside kept telling him it was the right and only thing to do.</p> <p>Now after two years of soldiering he finds that the voice told him the truth. For it was on those rare and delightful occasions when he was able to go home to this Baby and her Mother for a few days' leave, that he truly realised how precious are the possessions he is defending, along with thousands of other Fathers, all cogs in the machine which will someday make this world a worthy dwelling place for our daughters. For there are people in the world today who have so far forgotten the teachings of one who said "suffer little children to come unto me" that they must needs make war and attempt to kill, or enslave all those that oppose their ideas. If we had not left our homes to go out to stop them, you would have found yourself in a land ruled by hate and fear instead of inheriting the joys and freedom which are your birthright as an Australian.</p> <p>This is hardly the legacy I would leave my daughter, and so that she will at least be able to enjoy the liberty and privileges that my father passed on to me. I with all the other fathers am far from the sunshine of those we love.</p> <p>God grant that we may soon return, our job well done.</p> <p>Your Loving Dad</p> <p>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</p> <p><strong>Related links: </strong></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2015/12/life-lessons-from-grandparents/"><em>Top 10 life lessons kids learn from grandparents</em></a></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/01/5-types-of-grandparents/"><em>There are 5 different types of grandparents – which one are you?</em></a></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/01/parents-and-kids-who-look-identical/"><em>10 pics of parents and kids who look identical</em></a></strong></span></p>

Family & Pets

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A poem for Anzac Day

<p><em><strong>Dennis Ringrose, 87, ex Sherwood Foresters and Royal Warwickshire Regiments, shares his thoughts on Anzac Day in this deeply moving poem.</strong></em> </p> <p>I was born in 1929 in Nottingham in the UK, the youngest child in a family of six. I started work at 14 at John Player and Sons, where I stayed for four years, before leaving to start my National Service. After 20 weeks of infantry training I was sent to my country regiment, the Sherwood Foresters, before I was sent overseas to Jerusalem Palestine and transferred to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. I stayed there until it became Israel so in a way I saw history being made. I then travelled to Salonika, Greece to become a batman (an officer's personal servant) to Roman Catholic Padre, who had been wounded at the great battle at Arnhem; he was a great fellow to look after. After two years I was released from National Service and started work at the Raleigh Industries where I met my wife Doreen. We’ve now been married 64 years and have three children, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.</p> <p>My dabbling in poetry did not start until about 2000. I have always been interested in the military side of things and as an Australian citizen for many years, I decided to try my hand at capturing the most important national occasions in Australian history. I’ve always had an affinity with Australia, one that was struck up when as a teenager I watched the film <em>Forty Thousand Horsemen</em>. The moment when the horsemen come over the sand hills singing Waltzing Matilda always stuck in my mind. I hope you enjoy my poem.</p> <p align="center">***</p> <p align="center">As Anzac Day draws near</p> <p align="center">Trumpets call for all to hear</p> <p align="center">Of an event that happened in the past</p> <p align="center">About a campaign that could never last</p> <p align="center">When two nations of the Commonwealth</p> <p align="center">Approached a shore with silent stealth</p> <p align="center">Then with enthusiasm and great gallantry</p> <p align="center">Landed on the beach at Gallipoli</p> <p align="center">Through countless attacks with great loss</p> <p align="center">Many would never again see the Southern Cross</p> <p align="center">As the sick and wounded figures grew</p> <p align="center">God bless the nurses staunch and true</p> <p align="center">After retiring shattered and forlorn</p> <p align="center">A new national spirit was born</p> <p align="center">And each year at this day’s dawn</p> <p align="center">Groups of people stand on sacred lawn</p> <p align="center">G’Day Bill, how are you Frank,</p> <p align="center">Remember the days in that bloody tank</p> <p align="center">Before the monuments memories revived</p> <p align="center">Of their mates who never survived</p> <p align="center">Altogether later in the day</p> <p align="center">With banners flying bands begin to play</p> <p align="center">Proudly marching in lines abreast</p> <p align="center">Shiny medals clinking on their chest</p> <p align="center">Sailors who had sailed on the morning tide</p> <p align="center">Soldiers who had fought in countries world wide</p> <p align="center">Aircrews flying high in the sky</p> <p align="center">These are the people who made Australia proud</p> <p align="center">As years go by and memories dim</p> <p align="center">Older groups begin to thin</p> <p align="center">Through the years since our federation</p> <p align="center">There arrives a new generation</p> <p align="center">Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam too</p> <p align="center">The fight for freedom begins anew</p> <p align="center">And as we proudly sing Advance Australia Fair</p> <p align="center">Let us keep all these veterans in high revere</p> <p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><strong>Related links: </strong></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2015/12/life-lessons-from-grandparents/"><em>Top 10 life lessons kids learn from grandparents</em></a></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/01/5-types-of-grandparents/"><em>There are 5 different types of grandparents – which one are you?</em></a></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><em><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/01/parents-and-kids-who-look-identical/">10 pics of parents and kids who look identical</a> </em></strong></span></p>

Art

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My grandparents’ World War I love story

<p><em><strong>Karen Boyd shares the special love story of her grandparents, who met and married in the midst of World War I.</strong></em></p> <p>At the Benalla Anzac Day memorial, I stand in front of the statue of the soldier struggling to get up. It is a poignant reminder of the First World War. I have an endowed gratitude and remembrance for all those that were lost, and fought for their countries, in these wars.</p> <p>Personally, I am for peace and goodwill but I do have a story of this war. It’s not about death or destruction, it’s a love story.</p> <p>My young pop and his brother needed to get away from a dysfunctional family and an alcoholic, abusive father. So like many young men at the time they went to war in Gallipoli. However, my pop’s brother got gassed in the Western Front and my pop ended up with dysentery before he got to shore. He was also suffering from shrapnel leg wounds so was transferred to a Cairo hospital in Egypt. It was there he met my nanna, a young Blue Crescent volunteer, who was looking after the wounded and sick soldiers.</p> <p>Nanna was originally from Cyprus but her family had moved to Egypt when she was 12. She was working as an assistant in nursing when she tended to pop. I’m not sure if it was love at first sight, but they were to get together, fall in love and marry there in Alexandria. They wed on the 31st October 1918 in the British Consulate; Pop was 27 and Nanna 22 years old. Here is their wedding photo; Nanna’s wedding dress would have been handmade by her mother and sisters.</p> <p><img width="434" height="670" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/18927/karen-boyd-grandparents-body_434x670.jpg" alt="Karen Boyd Grandparents Body" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"/></p> <p>After the wedding, pop returned home to Heywood, Victoria. Nanna stayed in Alexandria until Pop could set up a home and pay her way to Australia. She then travelled by boat from Egypt to Australia on her own. It would have been a lonely and tiring trip for her all alone. She would have been so afraid to travel so far to a place she knew nothing about, leaving her family and everything she knew to come to Australia! But when she arrived, Pop and Nanna started their family, my mother being the eldest. The rest is history!</p> <p>I didn’t know much about their story until a fair time after they died. However, when we began looking into our family history in the 90s, we discovered this beautiful love story. My pop and nanna’s story makes me feel very connected to World War I. If it wasn't for Anzac Day and the war, they wouldn’t have met up and fell in love, and I wouldn’t be here today!</p> <p><em><strong>If you have a story to share please get in touch at <a href="mailto:melody@oversixty.com.au">melody@oversixty.com.au</a></strong></em></p> <p><strong>Related links: </strong></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/relationships/2016/04/beliefs-that-invite-true-love/"><em>5 beliefs that invite true love</em></a></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/relationships/2016/04/number-one-reason-people-divorce/"><em>Number-one reason people divorce (and how to prevent it)</em></a></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/relationships/2016/03/trusted-tips-for-finding-love/"><em>6 trusted tips for finding love</em></a></strong></span></p>

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