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.
