Hear This 25th April 2025

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:09):
Take a look. Take a look inside the book. Take
a look.

S2 (00:25):
Hello and welcome to hear this. I'm Frances Kelland and
you're listening to the Vision Australia Library radio show, where
we talk about books in the Vision Australia library collection. Today,
because it is Anzac Day, we're going to have some
books about the First World War, not so much about
the timelines or the histories, but perhaps a little bit

(00:46):
more about the people, the outsiders who were part of
World War one and the aftermath. So I do hope
you find this show interesting and enjoyable. Anzac day A
day of remembrance about the efforts in the fallen, particularly
around Gallipoli. So today we do have some books in

(01:09):
the collection, and the first one will be The Lost
Boys The Untold Stories of the Underage Soldiers who fought
in the First World War, in the First World War
of 1914 to 1918. Thousands of boys across Australia and
New Zealand lied about their age, forged a parent's signature
and left to fight on the other side of the world,

(01:30):
though some were as young as 13. They soon found
they could die as well as any man. Like Peter
Pan's Lost Boys, they have remained forever young. These are
their stories. This extraordinary book captures the incredible and previously
untold stories of 40 Anzac boys who fought in the
First World War, from Gallipoli to the armistice. Featuring a

(01:52):
haunting images of the boys taken at training camps and
behind the lines, these tales are both heartbreaking and rousing,
full of daring ingenuity, Recklessness, random horror, and capricious luck.
Let's hear a sample of The Lost Boys The Untold
Stories of the Underage Soldiers Who Fought in the First
World War, by Paul Burns. It's narrated by Simon Harvey.

S3 (02:18):
When war broke out, Andrew Fisher was about to become
Prime Minister of Australia for the third time in six years.
He was a quietly spoken Scot, a miner who'd migrated
to Australia in 1885. He had led the Australian Labor
Party since 1907, guided by firm socialist principles and a

(02:38):
high sense of humanity. The idea of war appalled him,
but his loyalty to Great Britain was firm, even if
his belief in its greatness was qualified. At the end
of July 1914, as the drums beat their loudest in Europe,
Fisher pledged Australian support for the mother country if war
should come. Fisher won the election on the 5th of

(03:02):
September 1914, a month into the war, on the 7th
of September, he gave a speech from a hotel balcony
in Maryborough, Queensland, in which he repeated his now famous
phrase Australia would support Britain to the last man and
the last shilling against its foes. The crowd cheered lustily.

(03:23):
A few kilometers from this hotel balcony, Albert Stanley Scott
heard the call. He was the fifth son of Joseph
and Eliza Scott, who lived in Gympie in earlier years.
They now grew sugar cane in a beautiful valley at
Mount Bauple, halfway between Gympie and Maryborough. Before they met

(03:44):
and married in Brisbane, Joe Scott had followed the same
path as Andrew Fisher, leaving Britain for a better future.
The Scotts almost certainly knew Fisher, who'd come to Gympie
as a miner in 1887 after his schooling at Mount Bauple.
Albert Scott went cutting cane. Backbreaking physical work. The photograph,

(04:05):
taken just after he enlisted, shows he had the hands
to prove it. He looks like he's wearing leather gloves.
Even so, at five feet, 6.5in, 168cm, he was just
tall enough to get into the army.

S2 (04:21):
So that was the Lost Boys, the untold stories of
the underage soldiers who fought in the First World War.
By Paul Burns. Paul is a burns is b y
r e s. And that book goes for 8.5 hours.
Paul Burns started working at the Sydney Morning Herald in 1976.

(04:43):
He was director of the Sydney Film Festival for ten
years until 1998, and in 2007 he won the Pascal Prize,
Australia's highest award for critical writing in the arts. And
this bestseller, The Lost Boys, about underage Anzacs in the
First World War, won the Indie Award for Best Book,
and was shortlisted for the Overall Industry Award for Best

(05:06):
Illustrated Book. He's also written a second book, which we
don't have in the collection called Sons of War, which
focuses on underage soldiers in the Second World War. The
next book is Soldiers Don't Go Mad a story of brotherhood, poetry,
and mental illness during the First World War. This is
by Charles Glass. A personal history of the friendship between

(05:30):
the Great War poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Soldiers
Don't Go Mad tells the story of psychiatry, the traumatic
effects of war, and the healing properties of poetry. Second
Lieutenant Wilfred Owen was 24 years old when he was
admitted to the newly established Craiglockhart War Hospital for treatment

(05:51):
of shell shock. A nascent poet trying to make sense
of the terror he had witnessed, he read a collection
of poems from a fellow officer, Siegfried Sassoon, and was
impressed by his portrayal of the soldier's plight. One month later,
Sassoon himself arrived at Craiglockhart, having refused to return to
the front after being wounded during battle. Over their months

(06:15):
at Craiglockhart, each encouraged the other in their work, their
personal reckonings with the morality of war and their treatment.
Therapy provided Owen Sassoon and their ward mates with insights
that allowed them to express themselves better, and for the
28 months that Craiglockhart was in operation, it notably incubated
the era's most significant developments in both psychiatry and poetry.

(06:40):
Soldiers Don't Go Mad tells, for the first time, the
story of the soldiers and doctors who struggled with the
effects of industrial warfare on the psyche. As he investigates
the roots of what we now know as PTSD, glass
brings historical bearing to how we must consider war's ravaging
effects on mental health, and the ways in which creative

(07:01):
work helps us come to terms with even the darkest
of times. Let's hear a sample of Soldiers Don't Go Mad.
A Story of Brotherhood, poetry and Mental Illness during the
First World War by Charles Glass. It's narrated by Mark Elstob.

S4 (07:17):
At the outbreak of the late European war, wrote British
Army psychiatrist doctor C Stanford Reid, there was little foresight
shown or preparations made for a large influx of mental cases.
Doctor Reid ran the Army's only mental asylum, the Royal
Victoria Hospital's D Block in Netley, Hampshire. Founded in 1870.

(07:37):
D block was better suited to locking up the incurably
insane than to returning men to normal life. It had
only 121 beds for enlisted men and three for officers,
insufficient for the thousands of mental cases the Great War
was turning out every month. The government needed more beds,
more hospitals, more psychiatrists, more nurses. It opened psychiatric institutions

(08:04):
starting in November 1914 with a special hospital for officers
beside London's Kensington Palace and Moss Side red Cross Military
Hospital at Maghull, near Liverpool. Maghull filled to capacity within
two months, forcing the War Office to requisition additional hospitals
throughout the British Isles. Hospitals, not asylums, wrote doctor Reed,

(08:27):
to obviate, if possible, the stigma that might be felt
to attach to the name. In 1915 alone, Nervous Collapse
claimed 21,474 officers. As the Somme bled Britain's armed forces
throughout the summer of 1916, the War Office turned to
James Bell's Edinburgh Hydropathic. Its swimming pool, Turkish baths, common

(08:52):
rooms and 12 rural acres offered essentials for traumatized officers
to begin their recovery. The government requisitioned the hydro and
Bell moved to another property he owned nearby. The hydro
required little renovation. The massive villa had beds for 174 patients,
with 2 or 3 to a room. Its administrative offices

(09:15):
easily converted to psychiatric consulting rooms. It was as if
Peddie and Kinnear had designed Craiglockhart for victims of shell shock.

S2 (09:25):
And that was the sample of Soldiers Don't Go Mad.
A Story of Brotherhood, poetry and Mental Illness during the
First World War by Charles Glass. It goes for ten hours.
A little bit about the author. And this is just
from Wikipedia here. He was born in 1951. He's an
American British author, journalist, broadcaster and publisher specializing in the

(09:45):
Middle East and the Second World War, and has worked
as a correspondent for Newsweek and The Observer. Soldiers Don't
Go Mad was published in 2023. Oh, and Charles is
c h a r e s. That's c h a
r e s. Glass is spelled g a g l
a double s. The next book is by Australian author

(10:09):
Jackie French and it is The Great Gallipoli Escape. Although
this book is fiction, she's renowned. I'm Jackie French for
her historical research, and this book is based on firsthand
accounts of those extraordinary last weeks of the Gallipoli campaign.
And this is a fascinating, lost story of how 150,000
men and their horses and equipment were secretly moved to

(10:31):
waiting ships without a single life lost. An unforgettable story
told through the eyes of a boy who lied about
his age to defend his country. So this is for
anybody aged ten years and up. So it's a young
adult novel, but I'm sure adults will enjoy this as
well because of the beautiful historical research that Jackie French does.

(10:51):
16 year old Nipper and his Gallipoli mates Lanky Spud,
Bluey and Wallaby Joe are starving, freezing and ill equipped
by November 1915. They know that there is more to
winning a war than courage. The Gallipoli campaign has been lost.
Nipper has played cricket with the Turks in the opposing dugout,
dodged rocket fire and rescued desperate and drowning men when

(11:13):
the blizzard snow melted. He is one of the few
trusted with the secret kept from even most of the officers.
How an entire army will vanish from the peninsula over
three impeccably planned nights. Based on first hand accounts of
those extraordinary last weeks of the Gallipoli campaign. This is
the fascinating lost story. Let's hear a sample of The

(11:34):
Great Gallipoli Escape by Jackie French. It's narrated by Paul Whitford.

S5 (11:40):
Nipper gazed proudly at his new rat as it scrabbled
at the edges of the biscuit box, trying to find
a way past the wire. As the autumn wind whistled,
the familiar stench of salt and rotting flesh down the trench.
Nipper wrapped his scarf around his throat more firmly, glad
to be wearing all six pairs of mum's socks. Every

(12:03):
bloke at Gallipoli, even the officers, wore boots at least
two sizes too big, so they could wear more pairs
of socks, or even pack the boots with straw. The
rat stared up at him with its beady eyes, showing
its teeth. Yes, thought Nipper, absently, squashing a louse under
his sleeve. This rat would win any race he was

(12:27):
put in. Biggest bally rat I've seen, said lanky, glancing
down from one of the periscopes that helped them more
safely peer over the trench in case there was any
movement from the Turkish lines on the hill above them.
His rifle, with its bayonet, stood at the ready. Yep,

(12:48):
agreed Wallaby Joe, whittling himself a toothpick. He was off
duty like Nipper. Wallabee Joe's face was almost black now
from all the layers of dirt. Nipper had never known
him to bother to go down to the sea for
a wash. Wallabee Joe still never said much. He was

(13:08):
older than most of the others, maybe even 40. Nipper
knew he'd been a swaggie and a fencer on and
off before the war. But Wallabee Joe never talked about
his home or family. Curly didn't say anything either. He
hadn't said a word for days. He stood at his post,
his hand trembling on his rifle, his face pale. He'd

(13:32):
been like that for months since they'd battled to take
these trenches. The maze the men had called Lone Pine
after the single tree left on the hill.

S2 (13:43):
And that was the great Gallipoli escape by Jackie French.
Jackie is j a j a I e French f
e n h f r e n c h. That
book goes for three hours or nearly four hours. Actually
three hours. 57 minutes to be precise. And a good

(14:03):
one for young adults and adults. Next we have Kitty's War.
We're back to non-fiction. Kitty's war the remarkable wartime experiences
of Kit McNaughton. And I can remember years ago, I
think it was Bill jolly, um, who recommended we get
this book in the collection. Kitty's War is based upon
the previously unpublished war diaries of Great War Army nurse

(14:25):
sister Kit McNaughton. This decisive and dryly humorous woman embarked
upon the troopship Orsova, bound for Egypt in 1915. Kit's
absorbing diaries follow her journey through war from Egypt, where
she cared for the Gallipoli sick and wounded, to the
harsh conditions of Lemnos island off the coast of the

(14:46):
Dardanelles and then on to France and the Somme. Here
she nursed severely wounded German soldiers for the British during Passchendaele.
A year later, she ran the operating theatre of a
clearing station near the front line. Kit finished the war
as Australia's first plastic surgery nurse, assisting medical pioneers in

(15:06):
this field as they repaired the shattered faces of Australian soldiers.
Through Kitty's diaries and Janet Butler's thoughtful narration, we see
the war through the eyes of a young Australian nurse
as she is transformed by what she witnesses. Let's hear
a sample of Kitty's War the remarkable wartime experiences of
Kit McNaughton. It's narrated by Ann MacDonald.

S6 (15:30):
In 1915, the northern Aegean island of Lemnos is undeveloped.
It does have, however, one of the finest deep water
anchorages in Europe. In April, the landing at Gallipoli was
launched from the naval base in the harbour. It is
the head of the lines of communication between the forces

(15:51):
of the Military Expeditionary Force at the front and the
base at Alexandria. When sister McNaughton makes a triumphal journey
on the Assaye into the sheltered haven on a sunny
autumn morning Saturday 18th, we had word to disembark. Great
excitement over it. A steam launch affair came out for

(16:13):
us and all our baggage. It was a novel sight
to see all the luggage and sisters all over it
and round it, steaming off and all wondering what we
were going to. Arrived at a small jetty after passing
between rows and rows of gunboats and transports, and all
loudly cheering us. Footnote the potential of Mudros harbour is

(16:35):
the head of the lines of communication and of the island,
as an intermediate military medical base was only developed for
the August offensive, Defensive, although the harbour had been a
naval base from the beginning. End. Footnote. At any one
time there are between 150 and 200 ships in the harbour,

(16:57):
with more than 50 arrivals and departures each day. Permanently
anchored in the harbour is the liner Aragon, the naval
and military administrative headquarters. Footnote. Stationed on board is the
British Admiral of the fleet, Rear Admiral Williams, who by

(17:17):
arrangement with the Greek government is the military governor of
the island. With him is the principal hospital transport officer,
who is also a naval medical officer and is in
charge of the evacuation of the sick and wounded by sea.

S2 (17:33):
That was Kitty's war. The Remarkable Wartime experiences of Kit
McNaughton by Jeanette Butler. Janet is J. E t j
e t. Butler is but l e r b t
e r. That book goes for 15 hours. Kitty's War
was published in 2013. Janet Butler grew up in the

(17:57):
same Victorian district of dry stone walls, wheat fields, and
meandering creeks. Except many decades apart, Janet Butler is an
honorary associate in the history program at Latrobe at La
Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests are war
and autobiographical narratives. Her present work focuses on the experiences

(18:19):
of the individual as expressed in their personal narratives, as
a lens on war and change. And she currently lives
in Melbourne with her husband and children in an Edwardian
house which was once the home of the third Australian
ashore at Gallipoli. So that's a little bit about Janet
Butler there. That's just from the Google Books website. The

(18:40):
next book sort of fits into this with regard to
plastic surgery. This book is the face maker one surgeon's
battle to mend the disfigured soldiers of World War One.
This is by Lindsey Fitzharris. After encountering the human wreckage
on the front, Harold Gillies proceeded to establish one of
the world's first hospitals dedicated entirely to facial reconstruction. There

(19:03):
he assembled a unique group of doctors, nurses, and artists
whose task was to recreate what had been torn apart.
Gillies restored not just the faces of the wounded, but
also their spirits. Let's hear a sample of The Face
Maker Won Surgeons Battle to Mend the disfigured soldiers of
World War One, by Lindsey Fitzharris. It's narrated by Daniel Gillies.

S7 (19:28):
Brilliant shards of crimson and gold pierced the eastern sky
as dawn broke over. The French city was a vital
supply point for the German army, positioned 25 miles from
the Belgian border. On the dewy grass of a nearby hillside.
Private Percy Clare of the seventh Battalion, East Surrey Regiment,
was lying on his belly next to his commanding officer,

(19:50):
awaiting the signal to advance. 30 minutes earlier, he had
watched as hundreds of tanks rumbled over the soggy terrain
toward the wire entanglements surrounding the German defence line. Under
the cover of darkness, British troops had gained ground. But
what had the appearance of a victory soon deteriorated into
a hellish massacre for both sides. As Clare prepared himself

(20:13):
for this dawn attack, he could already see the motionless,
broken bodies of other soldiers scattered across the blasted landscape.
I rather wondered if I should even see another sunrise
over the trenches. He later recorded and tightly lettered script
in his diary. The 36 year old soldier was no
stranger to death. A year earlier, he'd been holed up

(20:35):
in the trenches of the Somme, where tedious stretches of
inactivity were punctuated by frenzied bouts of terror. Every few days,
wagons arrive to exchange rations for corpses. But the sheer
number of bodies made it impossible to keep up. They
lay in trenches where they'd fallen. One soldier remembered. Not

(20:57):
only would you see them, but you'd be walking on them,
slipping and sliding. These rotting bodies became structural fixtures lining
trench walls and narrowing passageways. Arms and legs protruded out
of the breastwork. Corpses were even used to fill in
blasted roads that were essential for military vehicles. One man

(21:17):
recalled that they just shoveled everything into the crater and
covered it over with dead horses, dead bodies, anything to
fill up and cover it over and keep the traffic going.

S2 (21:28):
And that was a symbol of the face maker. One
surgeons battle to mend the disfigured soldiers of World War
One by Lindsey Fitzharris. Lindsey is l I n d
s e y l I n d s e y.
Fitzharris is f I t h a double r I
s f I t h I s. And that book

(21:52):
goes for eight hours and 15 minutes. This book was
published in 2022. So she writes in her own website
a little bit more about the book. So this is
just a doctor, Lindsey Fitzharris. So Doctor Lindsey Fitzharris, uh,
she writes, Gillies was a Cambridge educated New Zealander who

(22:13):
established one of the world's first hospitals dedicated entirely to
facial reconstruction at a time when losing a limb made
a soldier a hero. But losing a face made him
a monster to a society largely intolerant of facial differences.
The face maker places Gillies ingenious surgical innovations alongside the
dramatic stories of soldiers whose lives were wrecked and repaired,

(22:36):
and the result is a vivid account of how medicine
and art can merge, and of what courage and imagination
can accomplish in the presence of relentless horror. The Guardian
review says this is not a book for the faint hearted.
Meticulously clear and detailed accounts of gruesome injuries and gruelling
operations are supplemented by stunning portraits of by the war

(22:57):
artist Henry Tonks. Fitzharris presents an intensely moving and hugely
enjoyable story about a remarkable medical pioneer and the men
he remade. Now to a more traditional, I suppose, war
book by Peter Fitzsimons. This is the last charge of
the Australian Light Horse on the 31st of October, 1917.

(23:19):
As the day's light faded, the Australian Light Horse charged
against their enemy, 800 men and horses galloped four miles
across open country towards the artillery, rifles and machine guns
of the Turks, occupying the seemingly unassailable town of Beersheba.
What happened in the next hour changed the course of history.

(23:39):
This brave battle and the extraordinary adventures that led to
it are brought vividly to life. It is an epic
tale of farm boys, drovers, bank clerks, dentists, poets and
scoundrels transported to fight a war half a world away
and is full of incredible characters, from Major Banjo Paterson
to Lawrence of Arabia. The brilliant writer Trooper Ion Idriess

(24:04):
and the humble general Harry Chauvel, the tearaway test fast
bowler Tibby Cotter and the infamous war horse Bill the
bastard all have their part to play in the enthralling,
sprawling drama of the Australian Light Horse. Let's hear a
sample of The Last Charge of the Australian Light Horse
by Peter Fitzsimons. It's narrated by Richard Bligh.

S8 (24:27):
The fabled last charge at Beersheba. I had heard of it,
just as I knew a little of the Australian Light Horse,
in part because my grandfather, Trooper Frederick Harper Booth, had
served with the fourth Victorian Light Horse in the Boer War.
Having written many books on other iconic Australian battles, campaigns
and war heroes the Boer War, Gallipoli, Fromelles and Pozieres, Villers-Bretonneux, Kokoda, Tobruk,

(24:56):
Long Tan, Nancy Wake and Sir John Monash among them.
I had Beersheba in mind for some time as a
story I would get to. It was only while so
engaged over this last year or so, however, that I
truly realised the wonder of the story and how what
the Australian Light Horse achieved in the whole campaign was

(25:17):
so significant and enthralling. Thus, in a similar manner to
my books that were initially just on Sir Charles Kingsford-smith
and Sir Douglas Mawson, before being expanded to take in
much of the history of early aviation and Antarctic Arctic exploration, respectively,
because the stories were so wondrous. I ended up expanding

(25:38):
the scope of this book well beyond just the fabled
last charge at Beersheba, which was my original intention. And yes,
on that subject, as I went along, I came to
appreciate the point made by the academic doctor John Bowers,
that there were plenty of charges both before and after Beersheba.
But it was not just another charge of many. This

(26:01):
was the largest force of mounted infantry charging entrenched positions
to achieve a major victory at a pivotal point of
a vital campaign. And in the contemporary words of the
British Supremo General Sir Edmund Allenby himself, this was every
bit the most marvellous charge in modern warfare. In their

(26:21):
recorded remarks, the generals Schevill and Chaytor felt the same
as did so many of the troopers. But we'll get
to that.

S2 (26:31):
And that was the last charge of the Australian Light
Horse by Peter Fitzsimons. Peter is Peter Fitzsimons is f
I s I o f I s I o n s.
That book goes for 16 hours and 50 minutes and

(26:53):
that was published in 2023. Thank you for joining us
on here this today I'm Frances Kelland. I hope you
enjoyed that selection of books. And I just wanted to

(27:13):
mention that many, many people I spoke to in my
years of taking phone calls at the library who spoke
about their war experiences, mainly Second World War veterans at
that stage who had witnessed some incredible things, some very
painful things at such young ages. And a shout out

(27:33):
to everybody I've spoken to this week and asked about
their relatives, any relatives who fought in the First World
War and so many people know exactly the regiment and everything.
Some people are a little bit vague because their grandfather
or great grandfather never spoke about it. These stories have
such a place in the family. Histories are such a

(27:56):
significant part of people's family histories. Anyway, if you would
like to join the library or if you would like
to suggest a book next week, I have some great
reader recommended. Please call the library on 130654656. That's 1300 654 656.
Or you can email the library at library at australia.com.

(28:21):
That's all. Have a lovely week and we'll be back
next week with more here. This.