The next few posts look at the men returning from the War and taking up life again in the Shire of Alberton.

The posts will make it clear that the ‘Peace’ at the end of WW1 continued to feature a significant degree of conflict and division in the Australian community. Sectarianism, which had become more pronounced during the War over the issue of conscription, continued to be very divisive in the community after the War. There were also the lingering questions over conscription itself and, most importantly, the standing of those who had chosen not to enlist, particularly now that the volunteers had returned, many of them wounded and broken. The fear of the ‘alien’ and the ‘outsider’ which had driven paranoia during the War certainly continued after it. The common perception was that the White Australia Policy remained just as threatened, notwithstanding the fact that Hughes on his return to Australia after Versailles, boasted that he had ensured its survival. There was also the pressing issue of ‘repatriation’ and the inevitable conflict between what the returning soldiers had been promised and what the Government could realistically deliver. On this score, the potential for failure and despair was effectively unlimited. There were also the ongoing effects of the fundamental political divisions which had been created by the War, most notably the schism within the ALP. And, to round off the bleak picture, in the immediate aftermath of the War there was the scourge of the Spanish Flu.

Against this broad background, the following posts focus specifically on events in the Shire of Alberton in the years immediately after the War. As the focus is at the ‘local’ level, it is easier to see other important themes that emerged at the time. Arguably, the most significant of these was the dynamic of how the returned men re-connected with their previous life and re-integrated into the community they had left. What emerges very quickly is that these were somewhat fraught processes and the source of significant tension in the local community. In a real sense, the ‘boys’ were not prepared simply to take up their old lives and accept their prior status. There was a significant generational divide between the returning ‘boys’ and their parents and ‘betters’. It was also very much about the tension between what they had been promised and what they in fact received.

Club rooms for the returned men or a memorial hall for the Shire?

This first post in the short series examines the conflict in the local community from the perspective of one fundamentally critical question: who was to decide what represented the best interests of the returned soldiers?

The building featured here is a drawing for a grand ‘Memorial Soldiers’ Club with Public Hall and Civic Club’ to be erected in Yarram. But it was never built. The background story of why it was never built is one of multiple levels of disagreement and division within the local community.

The essential backing for this grand proposal came from the local paper – Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative. The editor – Augustus John Rossiter – had been a most vociferous Imperial Loyalist throughout the War. He would have assumed that he had established his right to talk on behalf of both the returning men and the community as a whole. He proposed a grand civic building which could incorporate a memorial for the fallen soldiers, a club room for the returned men, and a public hall for the community as a whole. Rossiter organised a shire-wide fund-raising appeal and he commissioned initial drawings of the proposed building which he then published in the paper on 25/4/19, Anzac Day. The initial plans or drawings were prepared by G de Lacy of Parkville, the architect responsible for the design of the very recent Holy Trinity Church (Anglican) in Yarram which had been finished in mid 1918.

The essential feature of Rossiter’s proposal was that the one, major new building would serve several interests. It would serve as a memorial to those who had served and those who had fallen. Further, it would incorporate amenities for returned soldiers living in the Shire of Alberton. But, as well, the proposal represented a significant, additional piece of civic infrastructure: a new and contemporary public hall. Obviously, the proposal would be expensive but Rossiter saw it as a fitting tribute to the returned soldiers and a major and justified exercise in civic commemoration. In fact, there were many such memorial halls built by local governments, both urban and rural, post WW1.

In the description of the proposed building, included with the initial drawings, Rossiter emphasised how the three building elements – ‘Soldiers’ Club’, ‘Civic Club’ and ‘Public Hall’ – were both separate and integral:

The proposed buildings have been designed so that the Soldiers’ Club, the Civic Club and the Public Hall can each be vested in separate bodies of control and managed and maintained as though they were three isolated structures. Although they are reached by a central common entrance, for purposes of convenience and effect, they are quite separate buildings in that fire-proof and sound-proof construction and parapet walls separate each from the other.

The overall building was a large, two-story structure. It included a comprehensive set of common-use facilities including library, reading and correspondence room, smoking room, billiard room and a shared, spacious entrance and foyer. The facade was Italianate in style and it incorporated space for ‘memorial tablets and inscriptions’.

However, in the same edition of the paper, Rossiter acknowledged that there was some opposition to his grand proposal. Strikingly, the main opposition was coming from the returned men themselves. Rossiter noted that there had been a recent public meeting in Yarram at which the returned soldiers – or at least a group of them – had dismissed the grand proposal and, instead, had called for a completely separate club rooms. Rossiter’s frustration was evident:

The demand by the men for a detached club created a barrier, and frustrated the good intentions of the public.

But now, with the detailed plans and drawings published in the paper, Rossiter attempted to increase the pressure on the men to give up the call for their own separate club rooms and get behind what he represented as the general community’s intention:

We this morning produce a facsimile [of the plans], and to clear the air, ask the soldiers, without delay, to state if a building erected on these plans will meet with their approval. The public want to know, for their intention is to build a memorial hall of service to the district wherein will be seen the photographs of all who enlisted, also those and records of the fallen. We parted with the boys as one family, worked for them while away, and longed for their return. What has made the difference that they should hold aloof now they have come back that their hours of pleasure must be spent amongst themselves, quite apart from former friends. A warm hearted public wants an answer. Will the soldiers consent to detached club rooms, with a clear title, under the roof of a memorial hall?

The emotional blackmail is evident: this particular group of soldiers is being ungrateful and, in effect, setting themselves against the very community that has supported them so faithfully through the long years of war.

The warnings to the soldiers were explicit:

The soldiers, unfortunately, lost much public sympathy by their defiant action at a public meeting in the shire hall; yet boiled down, the cleavage came from a very small section of the returned men. Prior to this the whole district was in the mood to go to any length towards a memorial hall for the fallen. Now, the hand is stayed, and until the soldiers say they will consent to a club under the roof of a memorial hall, there is little chance of getting either building such as would be an ornament and a credit to the town and district.

The public meeting where the soldiers had expressed their preference for their own club rooms appears to have taken place in early March 1919, just over one month earlier. At the time, there was a brief report in the local paper (12/3/19) of the meeting:

It was the returned men’s idea to build memorial rooms to be used as club rooms. They could invite anyone they wished to their club. At present they had no place whatever to meet in – unless they went to the Yarram Club, but returned soldiers were likely to be “black-balled” there. (Laughter.) If the public wanted to build a big hall there was no earthly reason why they shouldn’t.

It appears that this initial plan by the soldiers for their own private club room arrangement was not taken too seriously because by early April 1919 a fund – Alberton Shire Soldiers’ Memorial Fund – had been set up … to build a memorial hall and soldiers’ club rooms in Yarram, in memory of the fallen. The editorial that described the basic arrangement (18/4/19) noted that 1,000 circulars associated with the fund-raising effort had already been distributed through the shire. Plans for a related gymkhana were also already under way. The same editorial effectively dismissed the concerns of the soldiers and expressed confidence that the combined proposal would be accepted by them. It also had a passing shot at their intransigence.

The decision of the returned men, in favor of detached club rooms, gave rise to comment, and was not favorably entertained by the public. The plan before us presents no obstacle in that respect. The soldiers’ quarters are embodied in a comprehensive plan, not absolutely detached, yet will, we feel sure, meet with the approval of previous objectors. there really seems to be no obstacle in the way of the public and the soldiers uniting in one great movement, and if the response is on all fours with what the people can afford we see no reason why a very fine hall should not be erected in memory of the fallen, and of the brave deeds of the returned men. We ask for liberal response.

But the backers of the grander proposal did not get the ‘liberal response’ they requested. The grand proposal was dropped within not much more than one month and all future effort went in to setting up a separate club rooms.

The formal commitment to a separate (Diggers’) club rooms came at a public meeting the end of May 1919, about one month after the local paper published the drawings for the combined proposal. A report of the meeting was written up in the paper on 30/5/19. The meeting was chaired by B P Johnson, another Imperial Loyalist who had been an outspoken champion of the War effort and who, arguably, had the highest profile as a supporter of returned men. Interestingly, it was in this role as a backer and supporter of the returned men that Johnson came out very strongly in favour of the separate Diggers’ club rooms. There was this strong sense that even if he did not believe that theirs was the best proposal, he would always back the men’s wishes.

This meeting at the end of May was called to accept or reject, once and for all, the local paper’s proposal ‘to erect a memorial hall and club rooms for the returned soldiers of Alberton Shire’. It was clear from the start that the soldiers wanted to go their own way. Speakers noted that the appeal for the combined proposal – memorial (public) hall and soldiers’ club rooms – had been running for nearly one month but that very little had been received. In fact, the response had been so poor that the local branch of the ‘Returned Soldiers’ Association’ had now decided to pull out of the proposal for the combined facility and opt instead for their own, separate club rooms. Johnson, as chair, immediately backed the men and declared that the matter had to be settled at the meeting. Johnson argued that one of the problems with the combined proposal was that many locals claimed that they did not see the merit in building another public hall in Yarram:

Many of the residents had used the dual appeal as an excuse for withholding donations. Some had said that they were prepared to assist an appeal for club rooms, but were opposed to building another hall in Yarram.

Johnson’s logic was that an appeal specifically for club rooms for the returned men would attract a higher level of financial support from the locals. As events turned out he was proved wrong. The same argument was taken up George F Sauer another key Imperial Loyalist and backer of the returned men. He also claimed that people felt Yarram already had too many public halls. Implicit in this argument was the view that residents of the shire who did not live in Yarram could hardly be expected to contribute to a facility which they would not use. Benjamin Couston, local bank manger and yet another key Imperial Loyalist, declared that whereas he had initially supported the double proposal, he now supported the soldiers’ club rooms’ proposal. He also noted that the appeal over the past month had ‘failed dismally’. It was Couston who formally moved:

That this public meeting now assembled agrees to relinquish the double appeal for a memorial hall and soldiers’ club rooms, and now pledges itself to support the Returned Soldiers’ Association in building club rooms for the returned soldiers of the shire.

The motion was passed unanimously and the meeting also determined to write to those who had already donated to the initial appeal and ask… whether they were prepared to allow their donations to be handed over, to the direct appeal for soldiers’ club rooms. The new appeal was to be The Alberton Shire Soldiers’ Memorial Fund. The appeal would be supported by a gymkhana which would be held later in the year, in early November.

The last business of the meeting was to set up a committee to mange the appeal. Johnson became the president, Sauer the secretary, and Benson the treasurer. There was an executive committee which was made up of several returned men (E T Benson, W A Newland, Dr J H Rutter) and a number of local business men who had all identified as Imperial Loyalists during the War (W C Growse, E L Grano, W G Pope). The local Church of England rector – Rev S Williams – was also on the committee. This committee would work closely with the local branch of the RSSILA.

Johnson closed the meeting with a warning – rather prescient as it turned out – that if the new appeal proved a failure, then Alberton Shire … would be eternally disgraced.

Not surprisingly, Rossiter was annoyed that his far grander proposal was rejected in favour of the separate soldiers’ club rooms. His annoyance was evident in an editorial that appeared a few weeks later (20/6/19). Despite what he wrote, the public meeting had indeed formally decided to drop the memorial hall proposal and go with the club rooms:

If what we hear be true, the members of the Yarram branch of the Returned Soldiers’ Association have determined to disassociate themselves with the memorial hall movement, towards which some subscriptions have been received. The intention is to appeal for a soldiers’ club solely.

Rossiter was also prepared to challenge the real level of support for this decision and suggest that a soldiers’ club rooms would hardly constitute a suitable public memorial for the fallen and returned men:

It would be interesting to know the total number of returned men in the district and the number on the roll of the Association [RSSILA], in view of ascertaining if it be the will of the majority to stand apart from the public proposal.

But if Rossiter and others were annoyed that the returned men had scotched their grand proposal, the returned men themselves were concerned by what they saw as the lack of support from the local council for their proposal. There was another public meeting held in mid July – reported 18/7/19 – to drum up support for the soldiers’ club rooms. This time there was an organiser from the Victorian branch of the RSSILA who came to speak on behalf of the proposal. This person noted that there were no local councillors present at the meeting and claimed that … It is a general rule for them to attend meetings of this description. He continued:

Many of the councillors made promises of what they intended doing for the men who went to the war, but, unfortunately, the same men have turned out to be nothing more than lip-loyalist. (Laughter).

Johnson was again chair of the meeting and he made some attempt to cover for the absent councillors, but it was evident that there were clear divisions in the community on the specific issue of the club rooms, and the broader question of how the returned men were being treated in the Australia for which they had fought and sacrificed so much.

In mid September 1919, the executive responsible for fundraising for the soldiers’ club rooms purchased a two-story building in Yarram. It was on the corner of Bland Street and Commercial Road. It was purchased from C J Allin for £1,000. Allin had purchased it a few years earlier from Councillor Barlow. Later there would be suggestions that the soldiers paid too much for the property. The executive then set about making necessary changes to the building and intensifying the fund raising effort. The date for the gymkhana was officially set for November 12, 1919.

In early October there was a formal welcome for the returned soldiers of the shire in Thompson’s Hall. The report of the function was in the local paper on 10/10/19. It was a full house and the chair for the evening was the Shire President, J J O’Connor. O’Connor touched on all the then current themes: the debt of gratitude owed to the returned soldiers; the need for the soldiers to ‘stick together’ and become organised through their association (RSSILA); the enormous challenge of repatriation and the need for the returned men to be patient; the glory of the dead; the greatness of the Australian soldiers and their acknowledged status as ‘among the best soldiers in the world’; the decency of those who had tried to enlist – many times – only to have been rejected and, equally, the disdain for … ‘disloyalists’ in our midst; and, of course, the greatness and power of the Empire. Amongst all this, the chairman … made a stirring appeal for contributions towards the establishment of soldiers’ club rooms in Yarram. He declared:

The club rooms were required, and the appeal provided an opportunity for residents to show their gratitude for what the soldiers had done for them.

But the money was not forthcoming. Residents did not contribute to the appeal; and this, of course, created more division and rancour in the community.

Johnson had a letter in the local paper on 22/10/19. He pointed out the cost of the clubrooms (£1,000) and noted that to that point the total raised was under £200. He insisted that people across the shire knew about the appeal. He concluded that there was … no excuse save selfishness and base ingratitude for neglect to subscribe [to the appeal]. He declared that:

It is no wonder that the boys feel that the lavish promises which were made to them when they went away are not going to be honored, and that most of the people have forgotten the war and all that was done for them.

In a real sense this was vintage Johnson as the classic, high-profile, Imperial Loyalist, in that the appeal to moral righteousness and, critically, the attempted shaming of all who fell short, was so characteristic of all the previous appeals – from 1914 on – to support the War, smash Germany, defend the Empire, encourage enlistment, and, of course, support the introduction of conscription. There were no shades of grey, and no ambiguities, inconsistencies or opposing views in this world view. So Johnson held nothing back:

The soldiers have now purchased a building, and are now fitting it up for occupation, and after all they have done and suffered, it will be an everlasting shame and disgrace to the whole of the district if they have to find one penny of the cost. I venture to say that there are very few men in this Shire who cannot pay £1 at least to in some way show their appreciation of the soldiers’ wonderful deeds. It is all very well to turn up at welcomes, where the admission is free, and cheer and wave flags, etc., but the proper course is to sacrifice something. Don’t calculate how little you can give – the boys offered all, and nearly 60,000 of them paid in full – but see how big you can make your contribution, for, after all, the man who gives as little as he can, or who fails to subscribe, really puts a price on his womenfolk and himself. Let every man realise that everything he owns he owes to the soldiers, and, then this disgrace will soon be removed.

But now, one full year after the War, the local community was clearly sick of being told what to do by the likes of Johnson. Nor did they appreciate his attempts at moral blackmail and his superior tone. But he was not about to give up. There was another letter on 5/11/19. Johnson this time published the full list of individuals and groups that had contributed to the appeal. The total came to less that 70, with about 65 individual contributions. Clearly, there was not widespread support for the appeal. What was equally clear was that while previous attempts to shame people into contributing had not worked, Johnson had no other strategy:

It will be seen that a few pounds have come in since I last wrote, but the response is still an absolute disgrace to this magnificent district. Have the people as a whole no sense of gratitude? Some, I hear, will not subscribe because they cannot agree with the soldiers that club rooms are required. Such people surely forget what they owe these men. They want the rooms and it is little enough to do for the people to give them. It is anything but pleasant to be ashamed of the place one lives in.

In the end, the gymkhana generated a significant profit – over £500 – and the funds required for the club rooms were realised. Perhaps people had intended all along to support the gymkhana and had rationalised that that support would represent their contribution to the soldiers’ club rooms. At the same time, the number of individuals, across the whole of the Shire of Alberton, who did subscribe to the formal fund set up for the club rooms was very small.

Doubtless, there were many reasons for this lack of support. As already argued, many would have taken exception to Johnson’s tirades. Locals had tired of being told what they must do. There was also the question about whether the soldiers’ proposal was actually inferior to the one put forward by Rossiter and his paper. And sitting behind this question was the suggestion that the soldiers should not be ‘selfish’ and want just their own club rooms. There was also the view that the returned men should not be deliberately withdrawing themselves from the wider community and setting themselves up in their own exclusive facility. Surely, the thinking ran, now that the ‘boys’ were ‘home’ again, they should be fitting back into the community and they should be grateful that the locals were keen to give them a facility, within a much grander public memorial to both them and their fallen comrades. And if the returned men could not see that, then why should anyone support their proposal. Moreover, the soldiers’ club rooms were hardly a memorial so would it not be better to wait and contribute to a proper memorial when the shire finally decided on one. As already noted there were also questions on who was actually representing the returned men’s interests and were the returned men speaking with one voice. So there were any number of reasons why locals could have convinced themselves that contributing to the fund for the soldiers’ club rooms was not essential.

The rooms were opened on the first anniversary of the Armistice (11/11/19). However, the division and recrimination did not end with the opening of the soldiers’ club rooms. The editorial in the local paper at the time made it clear that there was still considerable disquiet over what had happened.

Quite frankly, we say that the building is not what the public desired the returned men should have. It is not good enough nor is it in the true sense a memorial. A memorial is something of a more stable character, and worthy of the great and gallant deeds done by our boys in the recent war. It should be something in memory of the dear departed. Instead, the League has purchased a building that is like a reed shaken by the wind. It sways in a moderate gale, and the time cannot be far distant when radical and costly alterations must be made if stability is to be any desideratum.

The paper continued its list of concerns, claiming to speak on behalf of the community:

We are voicing the opinion of the great majority of the people when we say that disappointment is expressed at the purchase [of the building for the soldiers’ club rooms]. It may serve its purpose in a way, but with large hearts and determination to do something grand, the public had in view a building which would be a credit to town and district, and a much more fitting memorial of services rendered – a building that would provide much more than the men themselves asked for – a building in which the public would be perennially interested, and upon which would have been lavished care and attention by a warm-hearted public in memory of those they loved. The present building cannot command the same attention because the deep sentiment that was assured does not invest it. There exists a sort of feeling “Well, boys, you have so decided; we will do what we can for you.

There is no way of knowing if in fact the local paper was representing the view of the majority of locals. However, what is true is that people at the time would not have seen the soldiers’ club rooms as any sort of formal, public memorial to all those men from the Shire of Alberton who enlisted and served and, more critically, the dead. The soldiers’ club rooms, or the ‘Diggers’ Club’ as it was also known, was a facility set up exclusively for the use of the returned men and as a head quarters of the local branch of the RSSILA. This meant that the question of the Shire of Alberton’s formal, public memorial remained unresolved. We will see later that the Shire decided on the cenotaph – featuring the list of the dead – which stands in the main street of Yarram. But, again, this decision was also marked by more division. For example, the local paper again called for something more utilitarian, even a public memorial swimming pool.

Another concern of locals, sitting just below the surface of public debate, was the question of what the soldiers would do in their club rooms. As we have seen in previous posts, there was a very strong temperance sentiment in the Shire. Local clergy had been active in trying to restrict wet canteens in the Melbourne army camps, and the dangers of drink in the AIF were constant preoccupations, as was the push for prohibition and ‘early closing’. Another social evil very much on the community’s mind was gambling, and previous posts have shown that this fear extended even to chocolate wheels at fetes. The possibility that the soldiers might drink and gamble to excess in the privacy of their ‘club’ was a concern and, in fact, the backers of the proposal gave public assurance that the club would not seek a licence and that gambling in all forms would be strictly prohibited.

Even after the club rooms were opened, the high level of criticism continued. For example, in an editorial published on 3/12/19, not even one month after the official opening, Rossiter questioned whose interests were being served by the facility:

A soldiers’ club having been established in Yarram, for ‘members only’, it is important that all returned men should join. The public liberally responded at the gymkhana, presumably for something of benefit to all Alberton Shire soldiers, not to a small proportion. It is felt that the Yarram branch of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers’ Association is not the ‘live wire’ it ought to be!

The paper suggested that too often key decisions were being taken by just a few of the returned soldiers. It called for all returned men to become involved. Also, there was another issue at play here, because the reality was that club rooms in Yarram were not going to be as accessible to returned men who lived in the outlying townships and settlements of the district. A soldiers’ club rooms in Yarram was always going to serve, principally, those returned men who lived in Yarram.

The formal meeting that saw the transfer of management from the committee that raised the funds for the club rooms to the Yarram sub branch of the Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League (Australia) took place in early December 1919. It was written up in the local paper on 12/12/19. The business of the meeting was the report from the ‘Building Committee’ (Johnson’s committee) and the approval of the constitution for the club rooms.

According to the constitution adopted, the name of the club rooms was fixed as the ‘Diggers’ Club’ and the facility was for the use of all returned soldiers in Alberton Shire. Importantly, the returned men did not have to be members of the RSSILA:

All district soldiers, whether belonging to the League or not, are eligible to join the club. The procedure is by ballot. All soldiers who fought with the Allies in the great war, or any previous wars, are eligible to join.

The Yarram sub branch of the RSSILA had been set up mid 1917. See Post 148. Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League (of Australia) for more background, including local tensions over its creation.

At the end of the War, local membership of the sub branch was approximately one hundred. At the end of 1919, Dr Rutter was serving as president of the sub branch. E T Benson, a local bank manger, was treasurer and W A Newland, who had earlier served as the local recruiting sergeant, was secretary. All committee members were obviously returned men.

The relationship between the Yarram sub branch of the RSSILA and the Diggers’ Club was not perfectly clear. The public’s perception at the time would have been that, effectively, the two agencies were the same; and, certainly, it appears that the sub-branch ran the Diggers’ Club as its property. However, the constitution of the Diggers’ Club clearly stated that membership of the RSSILA was not a prerequisite for membership of the club. Moreover, the same constitution stated that the ‘property’ of the club was vested in ‘three soldier trustees’ – members of the club – and that, if membership was ever to decline to the extent that the club was no longer viable, the trustees had the power to hand over the property of the club to the president and councillors of the Alberton Shire. Presumably, this arrangement reflected the fact that the money for the Diggers’ Club had come not from the RSSILA but from the local community, in fund raising overseen by civic leaders and formally supported by the Shire.

At the end of 1919, the auditors appointed to the local RSSILA sub branch were B P Johnson and B Couston. Presumably, this was to maintain a link with the committee that had been responsible for the fundraising for the Diggers’ Club. This link with the civic leaders who had supported the push for a separate soldiers’ club rooms was strengthened when there was an amendment to the Diggers’ Club membership rules in mid December 1919 which provided for ’soldiers’ fathers’ – both Johnson and Couston, for example – to join the club. There was also broad provision for ‘honorary members’. These membership changes effectively highlighted the distinction between the Diggers’ Club and the local branch of the RSSILA.

The Diggers’ Club – the building, at least – was destroyed in a major fire in March 1923.

Overall, it is clear that the establishment of the Diggers’ Club in Yarram at the end of 1919 represented many levels of the community division and social disquiet that sprang up when the ‘boys’ came home. In fact, the common use of the very term ‘boys’ goes to the heart of so much of the division and disquiet. For many locals, the simple story was that the ‘brave lads’ or ‘boys’ had enlisted from a sense of duty, fought with courage and earned the praise of the nation and the rest of the world as amongst the ‘greatest soldiers in the world’ and now, still ‘boys’, they were home again to take up the life they had briefly given up. Everything and everyone would go back to normal. In the world to which the soldiers returned, their parents’ generation and ‘betters’ were still there to tell them what to do; and they were expected to simply fit back into the previous social order. They were to be feted as heroes but it would all be done on the terms of the ‘old order’. They could have a dedicated clubroom but it would be within a much grander, memorial public hall which would benefit the whole community.

But many, if not most, of the returned men did not see it like that. Their years in the AIF had changed them profoundly. Many had had their heath compromised, if not completely ruined. They were all mentally and emotionally scarred. Many were profoundly disillusioned and desperate. They were anything but ‘boys’. True they were glad to be home and they looked forward to their future but they wanted it to be on their terms. They also expected that the countless promises made to them would be honored. They did not want to be ‘mucked around’. They desperately wanted to hang on to the sense of camaraderie or ‘mateship’ that had characterised their time in the AIF and they saw this soldierly mateship as exclusive in nature and reserved for those who had been there. They needed to be together by themselves or, at the very least, those they chose to be with. They were not about to be told by their parents’ generation how they should fit in and what the social boundaries were to be. If they wanted a separate club rooms for their exclusive use and that annoyed the rest of the community and left them open to claims that they were selfish, stand-offish and ungrateful then so be it.

It is worth finishing on yet another editorial from the local paper that once again found fault with the attitude of the returned men. It was a plea from the editor for the men to live up to the high ideals in which the local community held them. For people like Rossiter, there was this picture of the returning heroes of which the heroes themselves needed to be reminded. As mentioned, the gymkhana in early November 1919 was the key fund raiser for the Diggers’ Club. It was a large event with over 1,200 people in attendance. On the day, there was a procession led by the Yarram Town Band to the showgrounds. The returned men were invited to march. But not too many did. This lack of enthusiasm was not lost on the editor who, in his editorial immediately after the gymkhana, could not resist some criticism:

What few soldiers “processed” looked warriors every one but if the number of returned men be 400 in the district, 40 was not a good proportion. Even if the League members’ roll number is 120, then there were two-thirds elsewhere. We would like to have seen the full strength of the returned men in uniform on Wednesday. Those who turned out were so soldierlike in appearance but it made the others conspicuous by their absence.

References

Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative

Adams, J 1990, From these Beginnings: History of the Shire of Alberton (Victoria), Alberton Shire Council, Yarram, Victoria