A 1916 marching song welcomed the crowd to the Bombala launch of ‘The Men from Snowy River’ book on Sunday, with the local children’s choir belting out the old time number to set the scene.
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MC for the afternoon was Bombala RSL Sub-Branch President, Rob Letts, who introduced the choir of children from Bombala, Bibbenluke and Delegate, along with choir mistress, Penny Judge.
The marching song was followed fittingly by Noah Cole reciting a poem which was printed in the Cooma paper in 1916 when the Men from Snowy River March took place.
Mayor of Bombala Council Bob Stewart addressed the crowd, congratulating the Delegate Progress Association on their initiative in planning a re-enactment of the recruitment march.
Cr Stewart also congratulated Natalie Armstrong on the book she has written to document the march, inviting Kim Templeton to do the honours of launching the title on the day.
Mr Templeton is a Colonel in the Army Reserve and one of the main driving forces behind organising the re-enactment of the WWI recruitment marches.
He said that during the 100 year commemorations many books will be written, mainly on military history, but that Natalie’s book would be the best read of all as it is the personal story of the men, their military records, descriptions, letters and so on.
Mr Templeton pointed out that during WWI there were nine recruitment marches, eight of them being in NSW, and that the Men from Snowy River would have joined knowing the war was going badly; it would no longer have been an adventure.
The author herself, Natalie Armstrong spoke about the march, explaining that many had joined the group at various places along the route and then gone home to family or work commitments, joining later even at Goulburn.
These men, whose names were not on the official list, were included when information was found about them. They were mostly in the 55th battalion and in December 1916 joined the rest of the 55th battalion in France, which had been badly depleted at the battle of Fromelles.
Natalie quoted the numbers of Australian casualties and said that there are sadly 10,800 Australian soldiers buried in unknown graves in France.
She finished by saying that the commemoration of WWII will happen in just over 20 years, and that she hopes that someone will record the local history of that conflict.
The book launch closed with the children’s choir singing ‘God Save the King’ and Bella Russel reciting ‘In Flanders Field’.
