A Diggers Plonk

My great uncle Percy Dyson embarked for France in 1916 and returned to Australia sometime in 1919. He returned a broken man according to my mother who lived with him and her aunt for many years. During the war he suffered from trench feet, gastritis, conjunctivitis and eventually rheumatic fever. He never regained his pre-war health.

Mum remembered how he used to lurch up the corridor of the house to the outhouse where he kept a bottle of plonk stashed behind the toilet - it was never spoken about. His only brother Arthur had also gone to France in 1916 but only lived for about 3 months, dying form a shotgun wound to the stomach at Pozieres.

I have Arthur’s Book of Common Prayer which was returned to Australia along with his effects after his death. This tiny book contains a dried posy of flowers and an inscription from his and Percy's mother reading “To my dearly beloved son Arthur Dyson from his dearly beloved mother - God Bless you”.

The family also has several embroidered French postcards sent from Percy to his mother reassuring her that he was safe. The loss of one beloved son at Pozieres was already too much without loosing a second son in Percy.

By Fiona McLennan