Francesca's profile number 4 : Ashleigh Martin returns to the battlefields.

Connecting Spirits continues to expand to new communities in South Australia.

By Francesca Atkinson

Connecting Spirits has opportunities for students, teachers and those who interested in the history of World War I, to visit battlefields in Europe to commemorate their ancestors or others from their communities. Ashleigh Martin has just completed her third tour, this time as a qualified primary school teacher at Mount Compass Area School on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia.

“The first trip, I was only 18 and had never travelled before. On the second tour I took on the role of a youth leader and felt I had to portray myself in a particular way. The recent tour has been different as I’ve been able to just sit back and I think I’ve taken much more in now,” Ashleigh says. “I’m 25 and I took in a lot more information and sort of viewed it differently and through a different lens, which I’ve had on each tour.”

Ashleigh involved her year one and two class in the lead up to the 2019 tour, educating them on how Sutton Veny Church of England Primary School in Wiltshire, England, recognises the Australian servicemen and women in their everyday studies and school life.

The school holds an Anzac service each year, where school children lay posies at the graves of the Australian soldiers and two Australian nurses buried there. After the war, many Australians were waiting to be sent home, when the Spanish Flu went through the region and sadly many of these men and women, who had physically survived the war, died.

Working with her children, during their Humanities and Social Sciences subject to teach them the history of Anzac Day, they created a book to present to the children of Sutton Veny School about their class and the wider community of Mount Compass.      

“I think it’s made our kids become a bit more aware. They’d heard of Anzac Day and they knew what it was for, but they didn’t really understand it, so having the link to Sutton Veny, enriched them a bit more and given them a bit more of an understanding,” Ashleigh stated.

“I had a little girl in the year two class the other day come up to me and she’d written out all this information about her grandfather who was in the Air Force and had drawn up copies of his medals. I was able to show her pictures of the Battle of Britain memorial, there are some really interesting conversations from this.”

As she continues her Connecting Spirits journey, Ashleigh finds herself reflecting on the differences of each tour and how she has grown as a person, not just by age, but also through her changing perspectives of each tour. Having travelled overseas for the first time as a recent high school graduate and then again as a university student three years later, going back to the same battlefields now as a qualified teacher, opened Ashleigh’s eyes to the hell that was the First World War.

‘When travelling as a high school student or one who has just graduated, you rely very much on the group as a whole and in particular Julie Reece, who established the Connecting Spirits tours, to understand the emotional impact you feel. If travelling after some form of life experience, whether that is university, retirement or every stage of life in between, you are able to comprehend how to release your emotions in different ways. I think it’s just perspective, I think that’s the key word,” Ashleigh explained.

“It just changed my perspective on society and the world that we are in.  If this happened in this day and age, there would be outrage and the fact that a lot of people don’t know the extent of it, it is just like what if this were to happen again.”

For each tour Ashleigh commemorated different Australian soldiers and each commemoration has held significance to her, whether it is an ancestor of her own or completed on behalf of others. Before her most recent tour, she found the names of WWI soldiers on the Mount Compass memorial, extending the connection of the local school community to her time on tour.

Each of her commemorations were unique and by commemorating those soldiers on the memorial, she was able to undertake some further research of the Mount Compass community and understand what the region used to be like. While in Codford, in England, the group was able to visit the church where one Mount Compass soldier was married and for Ashleigh, being there was a truly powerful moment.

“The names were just on a memorial in Mount Compass and I didn’t even know they were in the First World War, until just out of curiosity I did some matching up of names,” Ashleigh said. “They were on the plaque which commemorated the first students that went to Mount Compass School, so it popped up purely by coincidence. I looked at a World War I list, then a school list and matched the names up.”

If going through the memories of her three completed Connecting Spirits’ tours, Ashleigh could be talking forever, however she does have several events that stand out, in her reflections of each tour. While each tour differed in the itinerary, all travel through France and Belgium, while on the recent tour, the group also visited the village of Sutton Veny in the English region of Wiltshire.

Ashleigh remembers standing beside her friend during her first Connecting Spirits tour, as she sang the Australian National Anthem under the Menin Gate in Ieper. On her second tour, she watched another student do the same and was able to reflect on her past experience, first being just slightly older than the high school students on her second tour.

“On the St Francis tour, watching those kids who were between 15 and 17, so sort of the same age as when I first went, watching them go through the same emotions and processing that I did on my first trip was really interesting and special,” Ashleigh says.

Ashleigh is a perfect example of how those who attend Connecting Spirits tours grow emotionally and continue to use the Connecting Spirits philosophy to share the remembrance of the servicemen and women to the wider community. 

Personal reflections by Julie Reece:

When you read Frankie's profile of her friend Ashleigh Martin and view the photos below, several things become very obvious about this young woman from Willunga and the contribution she has already made to Commemoration and Reconciliation. Ash is a fine young person who gives so much to others and is developing into a wonderful teacher and educator. She is able to effortlessly glide between people of various age groups, backgrounds and interests making solid links and connections along the way. Those qualities enable her to be an effective teacher and one who children look up to and easily engage with. She displayed those qualities right from the start when I first met her in 2011. Our school system and its young ones passing through it, are incredibly lucky to have Ms Martin helping and guiding them. Likewise, the Connecting Spirits project and its ever growing family has been enriched by all that Ash has given us over the years. May she return once more on a future Connecting Spirits tour to add yet another layer to her own treasure trove of learning! 

A teenager in the early days of her uni degree, Ashleigh embarked on her first tour in 2012.

                                                                               

Ashleigh's friendships crossed the generations! 

Ash, Felicia and Frankie look out over the English Channel towards France reflecting on their shared experiences while on tour.

In 2014 after her Youth Leadership role on that tour, Ash stayed with the McGinity family near Liverpool and undertook a two week student teaching placement in a local Catholic school . Uni SA acknowledged this as part of her studies and  included it in her degree.

One of the the high points of the tour for Ashleigh was the collaboration she had with the school at Sutton  Veny and their young students. 

After only one year in the teaching game, Ash is a born natural in this very demanding profession. She has found her calling. 

    

      

    

      

  

Some very special people make it possible for Australians to have closer connections to their ancestors who fought in World War One.

By Francesca Atkinson

Many Australians travel to the former western front battlefields in Europe to commemorate and remember those who served in the Australian Imperial Force during the World War I (WWI).

On each Connecting Spirits tour, the group often discovers people who are keeping the spirit of Australian soldiers alive and spend time together with them, learning more about the war.  Pierre Seillier is a French historian from Fromelles, a town that was occupied by Australian forces during July of 1916, who spends his time sharing the stories of courage, sacrifice and mateship the Australian diggers were known for. Mr Seillier said each day Australian travellers visit the Pheasant Wood Cemetery, where 250 British and Australian soldiers were buried, after a mass grave was exhumed in 2009.   

“Since the discovery of the mass grave and the building of the new cemetery, everyday at Fromelles, you can see a car, a van or a bus with Australian pilgrims.’ Mr Seillier said for the historians around Fromelles, it is important to acknowledge the sacrifice the soldiers made, while remembering how the Battle of Fromelles took so many lives.

“We have a great admiration for the Australian soldiers because they were all volunteers and mateship was very important in their army,” Mr Seillier explained.

Over the British Channel, in the small Wiltshire village of Sutton Veny, the 102 year old tradition of laying posies at the graves of Australian servicemen and women on Anzac Day each year, continues. Nicky Barnard is a Higher Level Teaching Assistant at Sutton Veny C of E Primary School and runs the Anzac Day service with the school children.

“Since 2002 I have been responsible for the school’s service, and it was at that 2002 service I realised it was an act in which the children were not really that involved,” Mrs Barnard said.

The village cemetery is the resting place of 168 WWI burials, including 141 Australian soldiers and two Australian nurses. After the war was over, those who were waiting to return home were sent to camps in the Wylye Valley and many caught the Spanish Flu, dying as a consequence.

The school holds significant connections to Connecting Spirits and RSL clubs in Australia. Its classrooms are named after cities or towns in Australia and New Zealand including Canberra, Darwin, Auckland, Geraldton, Nelson, Brisbane and the South Australian town of Elliston.

“We are in some way responsible to those families, travel is far easier now than it has ever been, but I do wonder how many families have been able to visit their ancestors final resting place,” she said.

“The children who attend this school are the future of Anzac Day here in Sutton Veny. The words "Lest We Forget" means to me exactly that: lest we share this information with the next generation, people will forget,” Mrs Barnard said.

Another overseas connection was established in 2018 when Julie Reece received an email from a volunteer at the Museum of Passchendaele. Gregory Verfaillie spotted the Connecting Spirits information cards at soldiers’ graves in Lijjsenthoek Cemetery and Buttes New British Cemetery, in Belgium. Gregory grew up in Passchendaele and now volunteers at the museum because he believes it is necessary to remember those who came from overseas to fight for the freedom the Belgian people have today.

“First of all, you Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and so may others came from the other side of the world to fight for our freedom, many of them never to return back home,” Mr Verfaillie reflected.

Mr Verfaillie has been busy working with the Museum of Passchendaele to create an exhibition called ‘Reflection 1914-1918, where the photos of volunteers will be on show. 

“With the museum, we are busy with a small exhibition about all the photographers of the museum, ‘Reflection 1914-1918’. This will be with a small part of our pictures; I have chosen the pictures of the first time that I met Julie at the grave of Private Neagle (Julie Reece’s great-uncle Private James Martin Clement Neagle),” Mr Verfaillie explained. 

Individuals like Pierre, Nicky and Gregory who remember the Australian servicemen and women in the ways that they do, make it possible for Australians on tours such as Connecting Spirits to commemorate their relatives in unique and special ways. We will always be grateful for their dedication and selfless contributions to keeping the memories alive of those who never came home from the Great War.

LEST WE FORGET…

Pierre Seillier at the 'Cobbers' memorial in Fromelles

'Cobbers' memorial, Fromelles

Our 'Froggy' mate Pierre. 

Pierre is a passionate historian and gives his time and skills freely to so many people. His commemorative work on 'his' soldiers is epic!

Gregory Verfaillie in Buttes New British cemetery, Belgium

Greg and his friend Frank Mahieu, are dedicated to helping those with relatives who died in WW1. 

Another  wonderful young man from Ypres, Gil, a friend of Frank Mahieu's, plays the bagpipes at for many commemorative occasions in the Ypres region. He is playing 'Waltzing Matilda' here at the oak sapling in the Polygon Wood of Peace that remembers Martin Neagle. 

Friendships born from the loss and tragedy of the Great War: Gregory Verfaillie, Julie Reece and Frank Mahieu

(Photo  credit: with thanks to Gunther Verhaverbeke, April 2019)

Greg and the 2019 CS group in Polygon Woods

Friends...

Sutton Veny primary school: Anzac Day 2019

The Anzac windows in the Sutton Veny chapel

The Anzac room in the SV school

Nicky Barnard, SV school and Anzac leader

Frank Lampard and Nicky discuss some of the many wonderful items in the school's collection.

Sophia Beevor presents a book to Nicky on WW1 Australian nurses for the Anzac collection.

Francesca's profile number 4: Frank Lampard OAM

Member of Veterans SA and the Aboriginal Veterans of South Australia brings Ngarrindjeri culture, knowledge and understanding to the 2019 Connecting Spirits Community Tour.

By Francesca Atkinson

Former schoolteacher Frank Lampard OAM of Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna descent joined Connecting Spirits, along with his wife Sandy, in the hope they would gain further insight into the World War One service of his cousins Private Cyril Spurgeon Rigney and Private Rufus Gordon Rigney. For many years the Connecting Spirits tours have held a strong connection to the Coorong towns of Meningie and Raukkan (Pt. McLeay), the town in which the soldiers grew up and where many of their relatives still live or have ties to today.

“I’m enjoying retirement and among other things, Sandy and I are able to take up opportunities to find out a little bit more about the history of Aboriginal participation, particularly in the First World War,” Frank said. “I guess that sort of comes out of my interest, which has almost become a passion of Veteran’s Affairs, specifically focused on Aboriginal Veterans.”

Frank was appointed a member of the 2019 Veterans Advisory Council in South Australia (Veterans SA), an organisation founded to support the well-being of South Australian veterans, which also advises the government of matters concerning veterans’ affairs, along with being a committee member of Aboriginal Veterans of South Australia.  

These positions are highly regarded by Frank who has previously undertaken many other public service roles within Aboriginal and Veterans affairs, most recently including a former appointment as the Acting Chief Executive of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.

Before joining Veterans SA as a committee member, Frank became involved with the Reconciliation movement in South Australia to create a memorial to the service of Aboriginal veterans. This monument acknowledges Aboriginal men and women who fought during times of war, recognises their service and is a place for Australians to gain a better awareness of Aboriginal veterans.   

“It was around 2007 or 2008, we actually recognised there didn’t appear to be much knowledge about the service of Aboriginal veterans. There wasn’t anything specifically to acknowledge them and so there was an Aboriginal woman who decided we would do something about that,” Frank explained.   “That woman just had to be, Marjorie Tripp. She was also the first Aboriginal woman to enlist and serve in the Australian navy and Marjorie was pulling people together, as she kind of unearthed them from her research, supported by some members Reconciliation SA. Her dream was put a memorial in place somewhere in the Torrens Parade Ground (in Adelaide).”

As we were part way through the 2019 Connecting Spirits tour, Frank explained how his involvement in veterans affairs is very personal because while he is a veteran himself, he is able to reflect and use his ties to the Aboriginal and veteran communities to remember and honour his younger brother, Laurence who fought in the Vietnam War. Ironically, the two brothers were 17 months apart in age, which is very similar to the age gap between the Rigney brothers.

Once the dedication to the new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander memorial took place on 10^th November 2013, the original committee formed by Ms Tripp, decided to stay together and there they constructed a group known as the Aboriginal Veterans of South Australia (AVSA). The committee structured themselves very similarly to Reconciliation SA, in that, the organisation has Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal co-chairpersons.

“Marjorie Tripp approached me and said, would I join the committee she was putting together and of course I couldn’t help myself,” said Frank. “I just about broke my neck to get there though because, living in the back of my mind, is the loss of my younger brother Laurence. He enlisted around the time I got called up, he was younger than me and I sort of wanted his service to be recognised.”

Returning to the main reasons Frank and his wife joined the Connecting Spirits tour, he told of the few occasions his mother spoke of Cyril and Rufus Rigney, two cousins of his mother, but who are culturally known to Frank as his Uncles. Aboriginal culture is based on respect for elders and in some instances older members of the group are known as ‘Uncle or Aunty’, whether or not they are related in a way that many would see an aunt or uncle to be. 

Private Cyril Spurgeon and Private Rufus Gordon Rigney were two brothers from Point McLeay in South Australia, who sadly never made it home from Belgium after being killed and wounded in action. Rufus later succumbed to his wounds. Over 100 years later Cyril still has no known grave and is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial in Ieper, while Rufus is buried in Harlebeke New British Cemetery, also in Belgium.    

“I am very proud to say they are related to my family and my mother actually mentioned them one or twice in my life, but I would have been pretty young in those days,” Frank outlined.  “The only other time I can remember speaking about them with her, was after I came home from National Service. We had a considerable conversation about my brother, Laurence because he enlisted and you can consider reasons why Rufus followed Cyril, they were fairly close and my younger brother, actually wanted to join me in the Army as well.”

 

The two Rigney brothers inspired Frank as they have with former members of Connecting Spirits tours, because in their community of Raukkan, the brothers are seen as heroes. The local church has a window dedicated to those in the community who served during World War I (WWI). They are seen to many members of the community as ‘Uncles’ due to the cultural aspect, suggesting those living in or who are originally from Raukkan, hold a significant amount of respect for the Aboriginal boys who went off to fight in the war.  

The entire 2019 group impressed Frank with their interest of Aboriginal service during WWI and in particular, the knowledge the group shared for Cyril and Rufus Rigney’s service, whether they were Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal. By visiting the battlefields of WWI, the Connecting Spirits group was able to gain a clearer insight into what really happened in the countryside of France and Belgium from 1914 to 1918. No one can appreciate the gravity of the war just by completing Internet research and the Connecting Spirits tour takes an emotional, yet significant approach while touring former battlefields. 

“The thing that has stood out for me is that there is so much interest by everyone in the group and it’s given me the opportunity to spice it up a little with that cultural detail,” Frank stated. “The kind of issues of status in our wider community, on a political level if you like, were both Cyril and Rufus would have enjoyed a much stronger cultural participation in our community than I ever had. Being able to observe first hand where they actually served, must have been a huge shock for them to be called up in an environment they never quite fully understood, yet at the same time how we relate to country and that is earth is mother to us.”

As communities throughout Australia responded to the call of enlistment, Aboriginal servicemen enlisted for the war, to fight under the Australian flag and for the so-called ‘motherland’, Great Britain. Even though they were not respected as owners of the land and faced more discrimination back home, a known record of around just over 1000 Aboriginal men enlisted to fight in the war. The real number is expected to be much higher, as after 1915 it became harder for Aboriginal men to enlist and most were categorised to be exempt from service.

Those who did enlist are not known to have contemplated the cultural differences, which were evident in society at the time. They wanted to be loyal to their country and showed a great amount of sacrifice in doing so.

“To actually pay my deepest respects to them is pretty high on the agenda, a pretty high responsibility I had to take, and I feel from that,” Frank says.

“Their whereabouts and the mystery of their participation is a lot clearer to me and I fully understand the perils of what they would have experienced. At the same time though, not having them come back home, to be in that position to commemorate them, in some small way is the most important thing.”

Both Frank and his wife Sandy are glad they joined the Connecting Spirits tour, as they gained further insight into WWI and found further connections of interest to each of their extended family’s history. Frank in particular has been able to share his knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal service during WWI, while bringing the cultural significance of the Ngarrindjeri people to the entire group and other people they met along the way.

Departure day, Tuesday April 9, 2019 (Adelaide Airport)

Frank and Sandy Lampard, Pozieres, Somme (France)

Commemorations at Mouquet Farm, the site where Ngarrindjeri soldier Arthur Thomas Walker is believed to be K.I.A. 16th August, 1916.

Frank supporting Jo at her grandfather's grave.

Frank Lampard, Felicia Hartmann and Anyupa Giles with photo of Sandy Wilson. 

                                                            Sandy and Frank

Frank, Felicia and Anyupa at the Menin Gate where Cyril Rigney is remembered. 

Friendship...

The Ngarrindjeri flag flies proudly at the Harelbeke New British Cemetery where Rufus Rigney is buried.

Commemorating Pte. Rufus Gordon Rigney, Frank's direct relative. 

Emotions overflow...

Anzac Day, Codford UK- we remember Walter Gollan (43rd Battalion)  father of Sandy Wilson.

Codford CWGC cemetery, UK, Anzac Day Dawn Service 2019

Farewell...for now...

'They are still there': Francesca's profile number 3 - Jo Kirlew

A 2013 visit to the western front in France unearths a remarkable story for one Adelaide Hills resident.

Julie Reece Tours’ Connecting Spirits trips’ has been connecting the spirits of those who fought in world wars with their loved ones for some time, by taking groups to the western front of Europe to commemorate the fallen. For retired South Australian primary school teacher Jo Kirlew, the visit to her grandfather’s grave in France would allow a whole story of her own fathers’ history to unfold. A history learnt by coincidence, after travelling to her grandfather’s grave, Jo has spent most of her life completely unaware of the tragedy her father had dealt with and ultimately kept to himself, through much of his life.

“It’s almost something you could make up as a fiction story,” Jo says. “It truly is an amazing story and I now see my dad in a different light altogether,” she recounted.

Jo always knew of her grandfather Walter Kirlew and his service as a Private in the 7^th East Yorkshire Regiment during World War I. Private Walter Kirlew sadly died on July 1^st 1916, during the first day of The Battle of the Somme and is now buried in Fricourt New British Cemetery in France.

After meeting tour manager Julie Reece in 2009 and again in 2011, Jo decided to embark on her first Connecting Spirits tour in 2013, to visit the grave and commemorate her grandfather’s service in the war. Having known of her grandfather’s service, Jo was eager to expand her knowledge and gain a connection to him by visiting his gravesite.

“The very first time that I went to my grandfather’s grave would have been 2013 and I thought no more about the visit other than the fact I’d been,” Jo says.

“Later that year Julie got an email from someone called Allan Kavanagh from Kent (in the UK), with an attached photo of himself at Walter’s grave,” she says.

Unsure of what to expect after the initial contact, Jo soon realised she and Mr Kavanagh shared the same great-grandfather, consequently making the two of them distant relatives. During her next trip to England, Jo arranged to meet with Allan in person, however did not realise she was about to learn a whole hidden story about her own father, one he had kept secret through all his married life.

“He came to meet me to have lunch together and he brought with him a large A4 folder of my grandfathers’ history and we chatted about having both visited Walter’s grave,” Jo explained.

“I believe he must have done a significant amount of research as in his folder he had information of family history going back to around the 1600’s.”

Jo described how after about an hour of chatting about Jo’s own father, as well as her grandfather, Mr Kavanagh’s wife asked him to ask Jo ‘the question’. Absolutely clueless, Jo asked what they meant, only to be asked if she knew much about her father before he married her mother.  

“I told them all I knew, which was not a lot.”

Jo knew he lived in Hull and that his father had been killed in the war, so he lived with his mother and auntie, whose husband had also died. She knew he delivered coal as a lorry driver and they were not rich, living on next to nothing. Jo was again asked another question by Allan, this time if he had been married before meeting her mother.

 

Jo explained how the next question took her by surprise but it was very possible there was a part of her father’s life she had known nothing about. She quickly recounted her father’s age when he met her mother and how it differed to many men during that era, being that he had married later in life, rather than at 18 to 20 years, like many people did in the 1930’s and 1940’s.   

“I said he could have been, because my dad had me at the age of 30, had married my mother at the age of 29 and only met her when he was 28,” Jo replied.

Allan then presented Jo with a document from the archives at Somerset House containing information of a wedding between Ivy Abbott and Joseph Kirlew, held sometime during the last three months of 1936. Jo questioned the name because she knew her grandmother had named her father Joe, due to being illiterate and the name being an easy one to write and spell.

“My dad wasn’t Joseph, he was Joe, but maybe officially when they said his name was Joe, maybe the officials wrote Joseph. He then took out a copy of an article from the Daily Mail in Hull of a death notice for Ivy and another for a baby who died at 6 weeks. If this was the case, he had married this lady in 1936 and within a year she had died as a result of childbirth and the baby died weeks later,” Jo explained.

Before returning home, Jo contacted Somerset House to gain more information of the particular wedding, interested in the fact it may have been her father, yet still bewildered about possibility it was he. After receiving the marriage certificate from the unknown wedding, Jo was able to compare it to her own parents and she noticed Joe Kirlew was named as a bachelor on both.

“I knew he had not told my mum. On the first certificate, his father was named as Walter, deceased and his address listed as 2 Richmond Court. Once I read that, I knew it was him.”

As Jo spent some time understanding the significance of her father’s former life, a life she only found out about by chance, she began to plan attending another Connecting Spirits tour. After the tour, Jo made the decision to visit the gravesite of Ivy and the baby, who was technically her older half-brother, by birth.

“Julie and I were going back to Europe for another battlefield tour and so we said let’s go back Hull. We met with Allan (Kavanagh) and his wife Sue and we sprinkled some of my dad’s ashes at the gravesite of Ivy and the baby.”

There was no headstone so Jo decided to have a black marble stand with a little vase for flowers made to place at the site, with the words of the death notice from the newspaper in Hull. Jo continued to find out more about this compelling story after visiting the gravesite and now thinking back to her father’s life, understands why he made some of the decisions he made, for their family.

“Through the cemetery register we discovered that Ivy died of Septicaemia and the baby died of Gastroenteritis. That was enough to dissolve me into tears because there was an incident when my nephew was 18 months old and had gastro and my sister had just had another baby so was unable to stay with him in hospital. My dad said he’d do it and the whole family thought it was really odd, because we didn’t think it was to be something my dad would do,” she stated.

Finally the dots all joined together and Jo finally has found out a somewhat amazing story about her father and she and her family are now able to appreciate her father in a different light. The way her father was such an involved family man, wouldn’t go anywhere without his family and who clearly was a very dedicated husband and father made perfect sense. Having attended several tours since 2013, in this sense Connecting Spirits has enabled Jo not to just connect with her grandfather but for her entire family to connect with other people, both those living and those not, by truly connecting spirits to one another.

The name of the project ‘Connecting Spirits’ is embodied in the story of Walter, Joe and Jo Kirlew all linked because of a laminated commemorative card left on a grave in the fields of the Somme valley. They are now forever one.

Postscript...out of this extraordinary story Jo not only discovered she wasn't the eldest child of Joe Kirlew and had lost a baby brother she never knew, but from my perspective I gained the friendship of this beautiful soul. Jo and I will be forever connected ...

Julie Reece

May 2019

                                                     

Profile number 2 by Francesca Atkinson: ' The war to end all wars'

The last time I set foot on the western front battlefields of World War I (WWI), I was a shy sixteen-year-old girl. Young and partially clueless to the hell that we know as The Great War, I was left feeling raw and felt a significant sadness at what remains throughout the countryside of France and Belgium in today's particularly altered society. It took just three short weeks in April 2012 to grow from that shy girl into a person who understood the meaning of war and how the brave men and women who were part of WWI still teach our society so much today. Since returning home, I always yearned to one-day return to the solemn sites that are Western Front cemeteries and finally in 2019, I was able to do just that.

I have spent many occasions throughout the past six months, along with the years before that, reflecting on the 2012 Connecting Spirits tour, which happened to be in association with the McLaren Vale RSL in South Australia. Each moment, my thoughts focused on three particular events and they are always the first I have when thinking about the past tour and also my younger self. Throughout the three weeks in 2012, I saw thousands of WWI graves and memorials, along with monuments relating to war. I commemorated five Australian soldiers and one British airman, each of whom I felt a connection to, as I learnt about their lives and as though I knew them closely. However, the most memorable places we will be visiting include Tyne Cot Commonwealth Cemetery, Langemark German Cemetery and taking part in the Menin Gate Last Post Ceremony.

Many people will have never heard of any of these places, but what they will have heard of is World War One and potentially how it was known as the war to end all wars. Sadly, this was not to be the final war, our precious world would see. Each of these three places have one obvious commonality, being that they are kept in remembrance to those who sacrificed their lives during World War One. The connection I feel with each varies slightly place to place, however I remember feeling eerie when I received a haunting chill through my body when initially walking through the Menin Gate Memorial and the two cemeteries. An eerie feeling I do not remember having elsewhere. Now 23 years of age, I believe the feeling was somewhat due to being young and naïve and through experiencing the emotional pressure that touring the battlefields brings.

That is by no means to say I do not believe this is completely due to my young age in 2012, because even today as I have re-walked a similar path through the western front, I endure similar feelings. I have always wanted to attend a second tour; even from being the shy sixteen year old I tended to be and am grateful the opportunity of Connecting Spirits is still present. I believe I grew immensely after attending the 2012 tour and have witnessed this firsthand this time round, as I believe our only teenager on the 2019 tour opened up tremendously, from the first to final week. Every person who walks the roads of WWI in a commemorative manner somewhat understands the meaning of war, however until you physically stand in the position of a specific solider, nurse or battle, the impact of the war does not properly touch you.  

As we travelled through the Somme during the first week of the tour, my thoughts still laid with the sense of how I was visiting many of the same places from the 2012 tour, yet how each place felt so different. I expected to comprehend these changes before we left for Europe but I do not believe I anticipated how I would spend time thinking about my own personal path in life. While Connecting Spirits is a tour to commemorate soldiers from WWI, the tour engages the group to become friends and share our own stories with one another. With such a close group, I was able to express my feelings and thoughts with the wider group, rather than bottling these up to myself. Now having been to many places on the western front for a second time, I was able to gain a greater sense of pride, in that the memory of those who fought in WWI are kept alive by so many individuals, from all walks of life.

The second week of the tour sent us to Belgium, travelling through a region where so much bloodshed took place, yet one, which is now filled with brightly coloured flowers and evergreen fields. During our week in Belgium, we visited the three places that hovered greatly in my memory from the 2012 tour, Tyne Cot Commonwealth Cemetery, Langemark German Cemetery and the Menin Gate Memorial. In the back of my mind, I wondered how I would feel visiting these places, now aged 23 years and with slightly more life experience, than the previous school student in me had. I remember walking through the Menin Gate on our first night, with the group and was left in awe of the amount of names listed on such a significant monument. The eerie feeling I once had, was now replaced with respect for those who after 105 years, still have no known grave.

Understanding the history of the war suddenly seemed instrumental to the thoughts I had as a 16 year old and now at 23, because while I did not fully realise back then, I was and am now the same age as many of those soldiers. This thought alone can be taken further, when thinking of the lives they left behind, in South Australia and elsewhere, to go and fight for their country, lives that while in a different era, would not have been too different to the one someone my age lives today. During both tours, I was asked by Julie to be one of the people to lay the wreath during the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate. Again, this put me in a situation where I was able to reflect on my past experience, while creating a new memory of the current tour. Upon arriving at the Menin Gate my body was filled with nerves due to the pressure of having to walk in front of a large crowd, with the fear that I may drop the wreath I was asked to lay, or walk too fast, like I know I did in 2012. With some time to wait, Felicia (the 16 year old student) and I were able to chat about everything and anything, leaving us laughing at our funny stories about family, friends and everything in between. However, once it came to the ceremony, laying the wreath became our focus and we walked proudly in time, before taking a moment to reflect on the reason we were there – to remember the courage and sacrifice of those who fell in and around Ieper, Belgium.

Earlier in the week, we had visited both Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Cemetery and Langemark German Cemetery, where again I was not sure how I would feel walking through both. Langemark German Cemetery is one of four German cemeteries in the western front region and as a 16 year old, I was not sure what to expect when visiting the German cemetery. To the commonwealth states, Germany was the enemy during WWI and I suppose this is how we are taught when learning about the war from a young age. When walking into the cemetery in 2012, four statues along the back of the cemetery caught my eye, causing the eerie feeling I had felt in Tyne Cot and the Menin Gate to return. Each statue faced the graves of thousands of soldiers and they were built to look as though each is a soldier looking over the graves of their comrades. This recent visit, I walked in expecting to catch sight of the statues instantly, however soon realised I was standing next to them, as they have been moved to another boundary of the cemetery. The statues now still look over the graves from a different view, but stand at the back of the mass grave of 40,000 + unidentified German soldiers buried together. Unlike many other cemeteries we visited, I did not feel like I could easily walk around on my own and just like in 2012, stayed with others to acknowledge the gravesites. Tyne Cot Cemetery is the resting place of just under 12,000 soldiers and the walls to the cemetery, dedicated as the Tyne Cot Memorial of the Missing holds the names of almost 34,000 soldiers. Once again, re-walking the steps of my 16-year-old self, I was able to further comprehend the amount of graves, as I now understand the background the battles fought throughout the Ypres Salient. I believe by walking back through Tyne Cot, with the 2019 group and along some rows by myself, I felt a feeling of comfort, in the thought of these soldiers being the reason we can live the life we do today.

Ultimately, this recent tour has taught me that no matter where you are from or what upbringing you have, people can come together as one, whether that be at the time of war or for other matters completely. As I continue to make changes in my life and as I soon become a university graduate, I know the journey in which is Connecting Spirits, will continue to connect me to others and keep me thinking of the reason I am able to live the life I live today.