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Illness struck soldier early in the field

Lindsay Beaumont Hughes was not a rugged bushman. He was not wounded in a bayonet charge.

But like so many men who went to do their bit during World War I, he came home changed physically and mentally, and in that way was perhaps symbolic of thousands of "ordinary" Anzacs.

Born in South Australia, Hughes was a shop assistant living in Maylands when he enlisted in June 1916, aged 34.

Assigned to reinforce the 51st Battalion, he embarked from Fremantle in November 1916 aboard the Argyllshire.

Hughes joined the battalion on the Western Front in May 1917 and little more than three weeks later fell seriously ill with suspected cerebrospinal meningitis, an inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord.

He was admitted to hospital and the first of a series of alarming telegrams was sent to his family, warning that his condition was "dangerous".

Hughes' war records in the national archives reveal that a July 17 telegram saying he was "out of danger" was followed just six days later with another saying he was "again dangerously ill".

On July 25, a telegram said he was "convalescent", one on August 21 said he was "progressing favourably" and another on September 10 that Hughes was again "convalescent". On December 21, he was finally well enough to be put on a ship for home, and was discharged in February 1918.

But the damage was done and on January 31, 1931, Lindsay Beaumont Hughes died at just 49.

A grandson, Peter Lilleyman, of Mt Lawley, said that although his grandfather's widow, Anna, spoke little about the war, the grandchildren gleaned over time that Hughes had returned "unlike in health and personality" the man who had enlisted.

Mr Lilleyman believed his grandfather's illness was related to unhygienic conditions often endured in the field.

The war left Hughes' wife to deal with the premature loss of her husband, his four children lost their father and his eight grandchildren were deprived of knowing him.

Mr Lilleyman said that while Hughes' story was a small part of the war, it was a tragedy of lasting significance for his family.