iRelle

The 25th of August, 1919.  More than seven months after the Armistice was signed and two months, almost to the day, after the Treaty of Versailles was signed to end the Great War. This is the date of the death of Private H.G. Holman. Just a name and a few numbers on a plaque in Launceston’s tiny war memorial, but there’s so many unanswered questions.

How did he die? Was it lingering death in a hospital somewhere, or a short, sharp goodbye with a note left on the table? Did he have his family with him, or did he die somewhere he’d never been before in his life, surrounded only by other soliders, maybe a nurse or two?

Was there someone at home whose heart had lightened so much when the news of the peace came through, left them smiling for days? Our boy is coming back home. Now my boy can come home. Daddy’s coming home, sweetheart.

Were there memories haunting his last weeks, days, hours? Pictures and sounds and terrible, terrible things that were always there beside him, turning the nights into that hell he’d already lived through once, until he didn’t have to live it any more.

Where is his grave? Where was his home? Which of the tiny halls crumbling down in country towns bears his name on the register of boys who went to war, who died?

Who knew, who missed him when he never came home? Who misses him now? There aren’t any poppies lovingly tucked away behind his name – he only shares the shadows of the tokens other families leave for other men. Ninety one years since his death, and no-one to remember.

And yet our nation remembers. At the crack of dawn, at the golden sunrise, in the showers of rain and the chilling wind – we stand together and remember Private H.G. Holman and every man like him. Because we are grateful, and we never want to forget.

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