Next year the QV Museum is having a big World War I exhibit, and I was asked if I wanted to be part of the group involved in setting it up. I agreed, although not with much enthusiasm. I mean, if you made a list of topics that have been overdone, if not done to death, Word War I is definitely on that list. Maybe not at the top but definitely on the list.
The problem though, if you get it in bits and pieces, a book mentions this bit, and a TV show mentions this bit, and a documentary covers this small bit in detail, but it's all patchwork. No big picture. No understanding of context to put the bits into. I hadn't realised the Gallipoli campaign was the first conflict Australian troops had been involved in until my sister asked me during the ANZAC Day ceremony this year.
I'm not sure what triggered the question, as at the time I was busy trying to work out the best way to take photos of the trees along the outlet.
(Not the first conflict that Australia had been involved in. That was
the sinking of the German Cruiser Emden by HMAS Sydney, part of the shiny new Australian navy fleet (their centenary is this year) in November 1914.)
My first task was to look through the Weekly Courier photos, for images that would fit the theme of the exhibition (focusing on the home front). The Weekly Courier was published by the Examiner peoples, and each issue has a pictorial insert of a handful of pages. Mostly photos of people and scenery, but also images relating to current events. Also some rather interesting photos that aren't necessarily war related.
( Cut for images )
