Walking in the footsteps of Lieut. Reginald Harrington DCM (Introduction)

 

REGINALD HARRINGTON D.C.M.: His journey of Remembrance 2022

In 2000 in the lead up to the first commemorative tour I organised, ‘Remembrance 2001’, one of the students who joined the project uncovered a superb collection of letters written by Lieutenant Reginald Harrington DCM. Reg along with his brother Keith, were students at the Hahndorf College prior to the war. Ben Huxtable was Year 11 in 2001 when the Remembrance 2001 group departed for Europe, and he researched and eventually commemorated 33 Hahndorf veterans who were buried overseas. In his attempts to locate and contact the families of these WW1 soldiers, Ben had several names he could not trace. He placed an advertisement in the ‘Sunday Mail’ listing the remaining names he was researching seeking help from the public to make contact. And this is where Reginald Harrington’s story came to light.

 A lady in her late 80’s contacted Ben and identified herself as Reg’s only daughter, Gwen. A lively conversation ensued when eventually Gwen told Ben that she had all her father’s letters right from the time of his enlistment (18 August 1914) through to the final letter written by his nurse in England writing to Reg’s wife Edith following the death of her beloved husband. (6 October 1918) Much to the consternation of Gwen’s own family, she handed over all the precious letters into the hands of this 16-year-old boy she had only just met! Ben and his mother Jayne then carefully and lovingly transcribed these letters and after the tour we published a book ‘Journey of Remembrance: an account of Mount Barker High School’s Remembrance 2001 project’ where most of the letters were included in full. (We made the decision to not include two of the letters due to the very personal nature of the correspondence out of respect for Edith his widow.)

So why now 20 years later is Reg’s story coming to light once more? The 2022 Connecting Spirits Community Tour group decided to focus on Harrington’s story and follow his journey each day we are touring. In the lead up to our departure on September 23, I will write a blog post featuring Reg’s letters as they pertain to that date. It may be that we are in the same location or on the same date he was writing. The relevant letter or extract will be shared at the start of each day and included in regular blog posts. In that sense we really will be following in the footsteps of this man from rural south Australia.

To conclude our commemorative journey, we will read the final letters at his grave in Netley Cemetery in Hampshire in the UK in memory of this remarkable man. The Royal Victoria Military hospital where he was cared for in his final days, closed in 1978 when a park was established by local authorities that surrounds the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery. The original chapel remains today and houses a museum sharing the stories of the hospital, medical treatments and those who worked and were treated there. It is our intent to visit the old chapel when we complete our commemoration to Reg.

I would like to acknowledge Allison Russell for allowing me to use her original idea in sharing Reg’s story in this manner. Allison produced a daily blog for the 2012 RSL/Connecting Spirits tour using this format for a different soldier William Murray FOWLER and has generously supported its use for Reginald Harrington. Thank you, Allison.

 

INTRODUCTION TO THE LETTERS

(Quoted from Chapter 8, ‘Journey of Remembrance’, page 196)

‘Over 25 of Reg’s letters are in existence and his daughter, Gwen Woodforde, has kindly given permission for these to be published. Because of their length and lack of punctuation some editing has been done, but the essence of his letters has been kept intact. His story is an extraordinary one. He enlisted early in the war with his brother Keith. They were both in Cairo during the riots in the red district of the Wazzir, and Reg gives a detailed account of this little-known event. He witnesses the mortal wounding of his beloved brother Keith and despite much sickness and lengthy periods of hospitalisation, he endures the horrors of the Western Front in the Somme region and later in 1917 -1918 in the hell of the Ypres Salient. Reginald Harrington was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal and was invested at Buckingham Palace. Throughout his four years away from home and family, his letters convey his enduring love for his young wife and little baby Gwen. These documents are moving, engaging and a powerful record of one man’s experiences during World War One. His words encapsulate the tragedy that is the Great War.’  (Julie Reece, 2002)

Since the book and the letters were published 20 years ago, Gwen has passed away, but the legacy her father’s story has created, continues. Each week in June- September 23, extracts from Lieutenant Reginald Harrington letters to his wife Edith will be published on this blog.