On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, We will remember them.

On this day we take time to remember, reflect and honour those who fought and died in war. Here are just a few facts for you to think about that relate to Remembrance Day.

William Harry Green (1878-1915) was born at Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England and emigrated with his parents William and Fanny Green (nee Haycock)  and siblings Frank, Bert and Ida aboard the “Australasian” when he was 6 years old.

The family settled in Gumeracha, a small town in the Adelaide Hills, in South Australia with Will attending the Gumeracha Primary School for a time, before transferring to the Blumberg (now Birdwood) School, and completing his schooling in 1892 age 13.

Will married Anne Duthie in 1904 and at this time his occupation was listed as gardener at Gumeracha. The Green family lived at ”Springvale” at Gumeracha and were orchardists and beekeepers.

Sixty five letters … that’s is how many letters my grandma wrote to her husband while he was fighting overseas in WW2. How do I know this? Well, sadly I don’t have the letters, but I do have her diaries which lists the date of every letter she wrote to him over a period of 14 months.

During the past few months I’ve been slowly going through our family heirlooms. Photographing, documenting them, and preserving them etc., and I have recently made my way on to Evelyn Hannaford’s (nee Randell) diaries … (aka my maternal grandma). I must say our family is fortunate that she was a diarykeeper, as we have 49 diaries covering a 61 year period. I can’t say I’ve read many of them yet, but two of these years 1942 and 1943 are what have intrigued me, as in the back each, grandma noted the date of every letter she wrote to my grandpa while he was in the Middle East fighting in WW2.