They'll miss me on the Lachlan

On my quest for a monument photo for my Get Pushed #631 challenge (see yesterday's post https://365project.org/ankers70/365/2024-09-05 ). I also visited other memorials along ANZAC Avenue, Canberra ACT. This photo is a detail from the National Boer War (1899–1902) Memorial, dedicated 2017 on the 115th anniversary of the end of the Boer War, recognising the troops sent from the Austtralian colonies, many of them from Light Horse Brigades. Sculpted by Louis Laumen

Four horsemen are the centre piece of the artwork, posed dynamically and as if caught in a moment of the conflict. Along the top are nine bronze replica journals, which are excerpts from letters detailing the experience of the Boer War as written by Private FH Booth, 2nd Victorian Mounted Rifles.

The Memorial pays tribute to both the men and the horses that suffered the privations of war: burning sun and frosty cold, rain and sticking mud, hard dry wind and dust, the roughness of the veldt, barely survival rations, suspect water, lice. Both soldiers and their horses susceptible to fatal diseases and accidents as well as the occupational hazard of all soldiers, disfiguring wounds and agonising death.

A panel with words by the Australian poet A B 'Banjo' Paterson is the back of the memorial:

'When the dash and the excitement and the novelty are dead,
And you've seen a load of wounded once or twice,
Or you've watched your old mate dying, with the vultures overhead --
Well, you wonder if the war is worth the price.
And down along the Monaro now they're starting out to shear,
I can picture the excitement and the row;
But they'll miss me on the Lachlan when they call the roll this year,
For we're going on a long job now.'

6th September 2024 6th Sep 24