MEDIA RELEASE: We Will Remember Them
Today our electorate of Watson remembers those who served in the war by launching a special commemorative website to hold the personal stories of local ANZACs.
The impact of the conflict on the Canterbury-Bankstown population was enormous, with 10 per cent of the people in the area volunteering to serve in the war.
Today when the website was launched at Campsie Library, Federal Member for Watson Tony Burke said: “What’s happening here is incredibly important, and it goes to a single line that we’ve all recited time and again: ‘We will remember them’.”
“Often we remember the conflict, often we remember the numbers of people who died, and how old they were. But there are very few windows of opportunity to tell the personal stories of the people who grew up in our local community.”
“These are people who had dreams, who were asked at our local schools: ‘What are you going to do when you grow up?’ and they would have given a very different answer as children to what then happened in their lives as adults. This website provides the opportunity to tell the story of them.”
An interactive exhibit based on the website has been installed at Campsie Library to document the history and the personal stories of Watson’s war heroes.
While the Canterbury-Bankstown area publicly commemorates those who served with local memorials and monuments, there is so much more to the memory of a person that the Watson ANZAC website can now hold.
Tony Burke said: “We hope that for the many people who are still alive themselves who served in different ways, or for the family members who know those stories will be able to contribute to the website at the “Share Your Story” page, and give us a hint of the character, the smile, the music, the laughter of the individuals who we promised that we’d always remember.”
The website is an invaluable resource for the local community relating the World War I and all of the subsequent wars.
Share your family’s stories by going to the Watson ANZAC website http://anzac.cbcity.nsw.gov.au/
