Perth Voice Interactive

SCRIPTWRITER Ross Lonnie wanted to write a play about the Second World War and was struggling when, out of the blue, he was sent a transcript of his father’s war diary.

Once he started reading, Uncle Jack fell into place.

“[The diary] is beautifully written—so understated, no hint of self-pity,” Lonnie says.

“It’s an account of what it was like being at El Alamein [Egypt 1942].”

In the diary his father writes of going to the beach for a swim and discovering dozens of sailors’ corpses, from a ship sunk off Crete.

A beach burial is organised: the incident could have been the one immortalised in Australian poet and war correspondent Keith Slessor’s Beach Burial, Lonnie says.

Like most returned servicemen, Lonnie’s father rarely if ever talked of his war experiences so the diary came as a surprise.

“You read about astonishing incidents, of people killed alongside him.

“But it’s not all serious—there is a lot of humour and fun.”

Uncle Jack is an autobiographical account of the toll that war takes on its veterans and their families.

Seventeen-year-old Doug (played by WAAPA graduate Ben Hall), is sent by his stoic father to work the land with Jack, a war veteran, during a harsh, hot summer.

It draws on the memories of Lonnie’s own sojourn in 1962, when he was sent to the country in disgrace to work for his father’s former batman.

“I had failed my leaving; having been sent to a posh school. I had let my father down.”

The work was gruelling and is something that stayed with the now 69-year-old.

“I was sent to learn the meaning of hard work…we spent the summer working together, it was very hard work…although Uncle Jack drank he didn’t stop working.”

The play is the story of Uncle Jack, Lt Col Lonnie and young Doug. The diary features but so does Jack’s memories of the lighter side of war—the brothels, donkey races and two-up schools.

Behind the levity though are darker memories Jack can’t speak of.

Featuring extracts from the journal, the play provides a dramatised snapshot of Australian wartime history… “[an] account of how story telling and distance can change our perception of the men we think we know,” Lonnie says.

Uncle Jack is at the Blue Room Theatre, Perth Cultural Centre, Northbridge, April 22 to May 10. Tix at http://www.blueroom.org.au