Perth Voice Interactive

LETTERS, medals, photos and memories of Perth during WWI are sought (for loan) for an upcoming exhibition Perth on the Verge of War.

Richard Offen from Heritage Perth says “we’re trying to put together an exhibition by the people, for the people, as it were, and looking for those personal things that just tell us what life was like in Perth during that period”.

Anne Chapple is lending her grandfather’s medals and family documents to the exhibition. One of her artifacts—a telegram informing her grandmother her husband had been wounded—illustrated the unsympathetic manner of the government at the time. She was given nothing more than a single sentence with no details beyond him being “wounded,” and she then heard nothing else for two months until her husband arrived home.

“The treatment of people was far less sympathetic,” Mr Offen says. “They were cannon fodder, literally… they were seen as weak if they came back with afflictions.
“There were lots of WWI veterans about, people who’d had arms blown off, eyes blown out, and they managed to have jobs in all sorts of unbelievable situation. Again, it was the same thing: You bloody well have to get onto it.”

He said there’d likely be a lot of old memorabilia sitting around in attics or in the garage “and just forgotten about until you go rooting around and find great-uncle Albert’s medals”.

The exhibition is at St George’s Cathedral in October, but they’re starting the curating now. If you have a war-era item to lend to Heritage Perth, get in touch on 9461 3244.

by DAVID BELL