Ordinary men who left extraordinary legacies
They jumped at the chance to go to war.
They were terribly injured, they survived against the odds, they came home and raised families across the State, they paid the ultimate price in the most tragic circumstances.
They were labourers, farmers, mechanics and clerks. And they became adventurers, poets, diarists, letter writers and soldiers.
They were sons, brothers and husbands.
Their individual stories were poignant, uplifting, hauntingly sad and breathtaking. And collectively they left a legacy for which all West Australians should be grateful and enormously proud.
They are our Anzacs.
The West Australian has been proud to have documented their stories each week since Anzac Day last year.
The series was designed not to tell the well-known stories of the famous names from that terrible war that began 100 years ago but to bring forth the stories of the Anzacs in ordinary WA families, the stories which have been treasured proudly but which were known to few outside the family circle.
It was envisaged as 52 stories in 52 weeks but ended up being so much more than that because many tales involved not just one man's service but the stories of so many others and their families.
While at the beginning of the series The West Australian made a point of asking readers to send in their stories, before long there was no need.
There was hardly a day when the phone did not ring, a letter not arrive or an email was not received asking whether we would like to know about an uncle, grandfather or father. On a number of occasions there was a phone call or email from a delighted reader who had not sent in a relative's story but who had seen him mentioned by chance in an article or shown in a photo related to someone else.
In some cases it resulted in The West putting together branches of a family who had drifted apart, or readers whose relatives had served together.
One of these cases brought about an email from Wendy Bennetts, of Hillarys, after she saw a story about Thomas Charles Pickering, who had served with the 10th Light Horse Regiment.
The article featured a photo taken in December 1917 of the six men who were all that remained of the 53-strong 2nd reinforcements of the regiment.
Sitting with Pickering in the photo was Hugo Throssell, whose bravery at Gallipoli earned him the Victoria Cross.
The other men were not named but Mrs Bennetts and her sisters Helen Pyke, of Marmion, and Susan Taylor, of Girrawheen, knew as soon as they saw the photo that sitting in the back row behind Pickering was their beloved grandfather John Middleton.
"As soon as I saw it, I said, 'There he is'," Mrs Bennetts said.
Middleton had sailed for the war in February 1915, received a severe gunshot wound at Gallipoli but rejoined the unit and fought on through the Middle East, not leaving for home until early 1919.
After the war, he ran a bootmaking shop in North Perth, then managed the canteen at Hollywood repatriation hospital.
Mrs Bennetts said he was a kind and gentle soul, loved gardening and had 14 grandchildren. He died in 1987 at the age of 93.
Lest we forget.
