Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

From Richard Watson

A letter to my Grandfather, LCpl Isaac Watson in 1917, who enlisted in Tasmania in 1916. He was a clergyman based in the northeast of Tasmania. He served in Egypt and took part in the Battle of Beersheba in Palestine. Jane McCready the writer had a nephew Robert Munckton had enlisted 4 days after the war broke out and sadly died at Gallipoli, his remains were found in 1921 and his dog tag was returned to his mother in 1922. He is buried at Lone Pine. I am glad to say my grandfather survived and returned home to Tasmania. My grandmother had gone to Victoria for the duration of the War to be close to her family

My dear L/Corp Cousin
Received you nice long letter last week & was very pleased to hear from you & glad the parcels arrived safely. I hope to be able to send along pretty regularly, something to keep you alive in that terrible country. It’s a good idea to box your parcels together and then you all share alike, for are you not brothers in the desert, you all look happy in your tents, thanks so very much for the snaps, they are both interesting. I am getting quite a collection from friends on the other side of the world. I hope you will get a chance of seeing the sights of Europe while over there. Egypt is well worth seeing also. Margaret and I correspond occasionally, but our letters are like Angels visits, few and far between. I have not very much time to write as the knitting is more important for our boys in the war zone. The cold weather will soon be with you and you will want warm things, but it will not last long, you won’t have so many pests to deal with while it is cool, people say that snakes are very bad, I hope you will be careful & not run any risks, there is a little family near Ballarat expecting father home in the dim future.

There is an epidemic of influenza in sunny New South Wales just now, it has given us a lot of extra patients, sometimes pneumonia follows after the other & then it is bad.

Dubbo is looking very pretty just now with the fruit trees in bloom and all the other trees budding, we have a memorial avenue of trees planted in one of the streets for the boys who have gone to the front and also for those who have fallen, we, my sister & I, have one for our boy who was killed at Gallipoli in 1915, he was only twenty one years old at the time. The latest war news is very good, you boys have fixed Johnnie Turk properly.- he won’t give you much more trouble, perhaps you may get over to France yet, we are hoping for peace next year.

Well Isaac, if you have time – send along a few lines to let us know how you are, we will always be glad to hear from you. I wonder will you ever come to sunny New South Wales.

Hoping you will get home without a scratch.
Kind regards and best wishes for good health, very sincerely yours.
Jane T. McCready