Welcome to the Australian Family Stories Blog page.

This is a blog about Australia – its past – both its human history and its natural history. Current topics of interest and importance will also find a place here.  This is an interactive site so please send in a blog or add your comments.

News is a special part of the Blog. Some news will be current, some will be from Yesteryear. If you have a relevant event, eg a history event, book fare, writer’s forum, etc  we will promote it here for you.

128 men and women, from ‘Diggers’, who enlisted to serve in World War I

These are the 126 men and 2 women featured in the book Diggers. They enlisted with the Australia Imperial Force to fight in World War I. One hundred and ten served overseas in Gallipoli, the Middle East and on the Western Front.…

The Fromelles Disaster

It is fitting, perhaps, that a small cemetery in a corner of the Fromelles battlefield should be the final resting place of 211 recently identified Australian soldiers. It is a reminder that today, a hundred years after the bloody battle of Fromelles, there are still eleven hundred plus Diggers offi…

Leaving Gallipoli 2

Roland Sherwin was eighteen years old when he enlisted in February 1915. He was appointed to the 7th Light Horse and landed at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli on 24th October. He told of his experience at Gallipoli in a letter to his father, dated 28th December 1915. (The lett…

Leaving Gallipoli

In December 1915 the Allies finally realised that they could not defeat the Turks on the Gallipoli Peninsular so, they quietly left. Of the evacuation Richard Bassett wrote- “The afternoon before leaving Gallipoli I was passing one of the cemeteries, and I saw a chaplain busily engaged in a…

Gallipoli Letters 4

Those in the 8th Battalion did not form part of the attack on Lone Pine. Rather they held the line of trench further north towards Johnston’s Jolly. They continuously fired on the Turkish trenches opposite to deflect their interest from the attack at Lone Pine. For a day and a night, th…

Gallipoli Letters 3

When young Australians first set foot on the Gallipoli Peninsular they were full of enthusiasm. They had a real sense of adventure. By July this had changed. Now the War was just work that had to be done. In July this is the reality of Richard Bassett On 29th July he wrote  –

Gallipoli Letters 2

Richard Bassett served with the 8th Battalion at Gallipoli. He was born in Colac, Victoria in 1887. He enlisted in 1914 and wrote many letters home from Gallipoli. These were posted in the Colac Reformer.  These are some of the extracts. “I have been having a g…

Gallipoli Letters

On 25th April 1916 the first Anzac Day was held.  As  Australian forces began to arrive in France, to begin their three years of horror on the Western Front,  those at home came together to remember the events of 1915 at Gallipoli.  Newspaper reports, long lists of casualties and espe…

Chinese persecution on the Australian Goldfields

Today a new book for teens & tweens is featured on this website. Set around 1860, Escaping the Triad it is the story of a young man who escape…

Gas and Gonorrhoea in World War I

Today the biography of another soldier awarded a military medal in World War I has been added to this webpage. Sergeant George Abraham was lucky to survive the war; he was shot, gassed and suffered from Gonorrhoea. His story is featured because, he was gassed by friendly fire and because venereal di…