TWO Hawkesbury WWI stories are included in the Spirit of Anzac Centenary Experience at Darling Harbour.
The travelling exhibition which finishes tomorrow, April 27, has been billed as an interactive, virtual reality experience, to give visitors an inkling of what happened to our Australian soldiers 100 years ago.
The Courier visited last Thursday – it was a very different to a normal exhibition. Though it was free, you had to book to ensure it wasn’t too crowded.
When you entered you had to go through airport type security and were given earphones for the audio track, which included sound effects and commentary on the displays. Audio units were triggered by moving into the next room.
Amongst the more than 200 artefacts from the Australian War Memorial were the stories ofthe Hawkesbury’s Clem Lavender and Jim Hoskisson.
In 1984, 90-year-old Clem Lavender of North Richmond recalled his experiences in France and Belgium during the First World War, including the remarkable story of his five brothers.
All six enlisted in the AIF: Andrew in 1914; Victor in 1915; and Clem, Clive, Daniel, and George in 1916. All returned home safely, one by one, to the great relief of their family, who had waited patiently at home for them.
The result was very different for the Hoskisson family. Samuel James Hoskisson, a farmer from Windsor, was farewelled by his family a week before Christmas, 1915.
He left Australia as artillery reinforcement and was posted to the 21st Australian Field Artillery Brigade as a gunner. Just six months after leaving the Sydney docks, he was dead, from a shrapnel wound to his face in France in late May, 1916.
His mother, Amelia, never saw his memorial plaque or his medals, which were delivered to the family in 1922, as the shock and distress of losing her son had overwhelmed her, and, another casualty of war, died in 1919.
The Spirit of Anzac Centenary Experience was presented by the Australian Government, the Australian War Memorial and the Australian Defence Force.