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Terry Bugg has had many moments over the past 20 years researching the region’s war history, in which a yellowing postcard, handwritten letter or even the discovery of a new name on a list has moved him. Yet nothing could prepare the historian for something he saw a few weeks ago, which left him astounded. It was an old battered suitcase that had been kept under a bed for decades and its contents were nearly 100 years old. More amazingly, the items were in pristine condition. The memorabilia had been kept by an Illawarra woman whose father had fought in WWI. There was a uniform jacket belonging to her father, an original First Australian Field Ambulance booklet, medals, ribbons, and postcards. Bugg couldn’t believe it when the woman pulled out a decorative brass tin that was sent by Princess Mary (daughter of King George V and Queen Mary) to members of the British, Colonial and Indian Armed Forces for Christmas 1914. Because so many of the tins were distributed, some soldiers did not receive theirs until 1915. The tin was filled with various items including tobacco, confectionery, spices, pencils, and a picture of the princess. ‘‘To me, touching one of them is like digging up an old relic,’’ Bugg says. The suitcase’s contents were unearthed treasure for Bugg, secretary of the Illawarra Family History Group. ‘‘This suitcase looked like something a charity group would’ve thrown out,’’ he says. ‘‘But what was in it was perfect.’’ The contents of the suitcase were brought to light during a scan and share day at Thirroul District Library on June 26. The scan day was part of the Illawarra Remembers 1914-1918 project, a joint partnership between Wollongong, Shellharbour and Kiama councils, the University of Wollongong, the Illawarra Family History Group, the NSW government and the Library Council of NSW. The project involves people sharing photographs, documents, and personal mementoes from their family archives relating to WWI. The items are photographed or scanned and then given back to family members. The scanned items are being added to a new online resource – illawarra remembers.com. Wollongong City Libraries Local Studies librarian Marisa O’Connor says the online collection will be launched next year to mark the centenary of WWI and it will be linked to resources at the State Library of NSW and the Australian War Memorial. ‘‘The purpose of this project is to collect the stories of people from the Illawarra who went to WWI and to bring to life the names on cenotaphs across the region,’’ O’Connor says. O’Connor says 402 scans were made at Thirroul Library. Of this, 259 were photographs. The remainder were documents including the front and back of postcards. Council staff took 255 photographs of all items brought in. In some instances, items were photographed three or four times. O’Connor says the range of items shared included photographs, postcards with personal messages, a cablegram announcing the birth of a daughter, diaries, personal letters, identity tags and bracelets, Christmas cards, a forage cap, illustrations and drawings, and a sewing kit with buttons, wool, thread, needle and safety pin. ‘‘Information and photographs shared on the day related to 10 soldiers and one nurse from the Illawarra,’’ she says. O’Connor says despite the passage of time, people still have WWI memorabilia in their possession. However, the stories behind the objects had sometimes not been kept alive. ‘‘The items are handed down from family member to family member but some of the background information has been lost,’’ she says. ‘‘For instance we photographed a locket on the scan day which contained a very faint photograph of a young lady,’’ she says. ‘‘When I spoke to the donor she said she thought the woman was the soldier’s wife he married in England but they were not sure and they’ve got no-one to ask.’’ O’Connor says some of the material, brought in to be scanned, was quite moving. One such item was a letter from Lieutenant William Sydney Duchesne, 1st Battalion AIF, while he was stationed at Mena Camp in Cairo. He wrote the letter, dated January 31, 1915, to his parents and addressed it to the newsagency in Crown Street, Wollongong. In the letter, the young soldier tries to reassure his family and urges them not to worry about his safety. ‘‘Well Dad I hope that you don’t let Mother worry like that because it makes it harder for us to think that those we love and those who love us are worrying over our safekeeping,’’ Lt Duchesne wrote. ‘‘Tell them Dad that for them and our country we who come from Australia are ready to give what is most precious to all, that is our life. ‘‘That if by doing so we help to keep you all safe and free and tell Mother and Aunt Ada that I wish them to remember the text of one of Canon Vaughan’s sermons ‘Weep not for the dead but for the living’ because if by chance my time has come to leave this world I wish not for a better death than on the battlefield helping Englishmen to keep our Empire in freedom. ‘‘I know that my father will only be too pleased to know that his son was able to go and take the share of his family’s safekeeping.’’ Lt Duchesne was killed in action at the Dardanelles on April 25, 1915, one month before his 21st birthday on May 28. ‘‘That letter really touched me and the fact he is telling his mother not to worry,’’ says O’Connor. ‘‘The original letter in his handwriting has been very well preserved by the family.’’ O’Connor, who has worked at the council for 25 years, says Illawarra Remembers 1914-1918 will be a significant and permanent resource for the community. More scanning days will be offered this year. ‘‘It’s such an important project that I’m really pleased that council will have a lasting resource for the families of the Illawarra,’’ she says. ‘‘It will be on council’s website so it will be maintained and different to the honour boards and cenotaphs around the Illawarra. This will have background information on the soldiers that enlisted. ‘‘So to have a lasting digital resource that connects to other collections such as the war memorial all adds to the story of the soldier and is a wonderful project for the community.’’ Bugg’s research into the Illawarra’s connections with WWI was the catalyst for the Illawarra Remembers project. Bugg became involved in WWI research about 18 years ago after an accident left him unable to work. ‘‘I realised that there were all these names on war memorials but who were they?,’’ he says. ‘‘I wanted to know who the guy was, who his wife was, who his children were, and what happened to him. It’s easy to have a little mark next to their name that says ‘killed in action’ but what did that mean and where?’’ Bugg decided the best place to start would be with newspapers so he began indexing The Illawarra Mercury from August 1914 to December 1919. As a starting point, a book released by the Illawarra Family History Group on the region’s war memorials revealed there were about 2300 people who served in WWI. ‘‘So I started with those names and when I started going through the papers I realised there were names coming up all the time that weren’t listed on any local memorials,’’ he says. ‘‘There was a gap in the records because sometimes the men didn’t return from the war for several years, they may have lived overseas for a while, and missed that period when the names were being put on the memorials back home. ‘‘I decided I would record all the names on a database, as well as much biographical information I could get on them. I recorded anything the newspaper had printed about them, including their sporting interests or things they were good at.’’ Bugg discovered that about 4200 people from the Illawarra served in WWI, a significantly higher figure than the original 2300 estimate. And that’s just names that Bugg has garnered from the Mercury. His next project is to go through The South Coast Times during the relevant time periods. The digital age has made historical research much easier compared with the old days, when Bugg would travel to the War Memorial in Canberra and the National Archives in Sydney. ‘‘I would sit and physically go through the old books and lists,’’ he says. ‘‘Some of them would be falling apart in your hands they were so old.’’ Bugg is hoping that Illawarra Remembers will further illuminate an important time in the history of the Illawarra and the nation. ‘‘There were people around doing research on individual memorials but they weren’t handing it over and making it public,’’ he says. ‘‘I felt that that was wrong. The story of the Anzacs and the First World War belongs to everybody and everybody should be entitled to know and see who these people were.’’ Illawarra Remembers 1914-1918 ■The next scan and share day will be at Dapto District Library on Thursday, August 29, from 10am-4pm. ■Author and historian Michael Molkentin will speak about WWI at Dapto Library on Wednesday, August 21, from 5pm-6.30pm. Molkentin was a consultant historian for the television documentary series In Their Footsteps and was a featured contributor on the ABC TV documentary Lost In Flanders. For bookings and information phone: 42517722. ■ During History Week in September, scan and share days will be held at Warilla Library on Tuesday, September 10, from 10am-1pm and at Kiama Library from 2pm-5pm. ■ A scan and share day has been planned for Wollongong Central Library on a date to be fixed in November.

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