Hunter Legacy in East Maitland, New South Wales, Australia | Non-profit organisation

Hunter Legacy

Locality: East Maitland, New South Wales, Australia

Phone: +61 2 4933 6787

Address: 225 Newcastle Road 2323 East Maitland, NSW, Australia

Website: www.legacy.com.au/hunter/HunterLegacy

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• Non-profit organisation
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• Public service

25.01.2022 I never heard of anything but the First World War ... Those towns in West Yorks were still stunned. So I passed my early days in a kind of Mental Hospital of the survivors ... it wasn’t simply the horrible mud struggle in a terrain more or less composed of liquefied corpses, the stories of how this or that village lost all its men in one day, one attack ... My father’s whole life was posthumous in some way, after that. Ted Hughes, in a letter. __... Dust As We Are, by Ted Hughes ___ My post-war father was so silent He seemed to be listening. I eavesdropped On the hot line. His lonely sittings Mangled me, in secret like T.V. Watched too long, my nerves lasered. Then, after an image of the incessant Mowing passage of machine-gun effects, What it filled a trench with. And his laugh (How that had survived so nearly intact?) Twitched the curtain never quite deftly enough Over the hospital wards Crowded with his (photographed) shock-eyed pals. I had to use up a lot of spirit Getting over it. I was helping him. I was his supplementary convalescent. He took up his pre-war joie de vivre. But his displays of muscular definition Were a bleached montage lit landscapes: Swampquakes of the slime of puddled soldiers Where bones and bits of equipment Showered from every shell-burst. Naked men Slithered staring where their mothers and sisters Would never have to meet their eyes, or see Exactly how they sprawled and were trodden. So he had been salvaged and washed. His muscles very white marble white. He had been heavily killed. But we had revived him. Now he taught us a silence like prayer. There he sat, killed but alive so long As we were very careful. I divined, With a comb, Under his wavy, golden hair, as I combed it, The fragility of skull. And I filled With his knowledge. After mother’s milk This was the soul’s food. A soap-smell spectre Of the massacre of innocents. So the soul grew. A strange thing, with rickets a hyena. No singing that kind of laughter. _______________ Ted Hughes' father, William, was from the town of Bury in Lancashire. Bury had a population of about 50,000 when World War I started. William joined the Lancashire Fusiliers and took part in a botched campaign at Gallipoli, where some 2000 men from Bury were killed in nine months. William survived to later serve on the Western Front, which he also survived. By the end of the war, about 14,000 men from Bury had been killed. William Hughes died in 1981. Interested readers might look up Helen Melody’s article, Ted Hughes and War, and Geoffrey Moorhouse's book, "Hell's Foundations : A Social History of the Town of Bury in the Aftermath of the Gallipoli Campaign".

23.01.2022 Has anyone seen Hacksaw Ridge, Mel Gibson's acclaimed new true tale of a conscientious objector serving as a medic during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa? Reading Cinemas at Maitland kindly ran a raffle at the preview screening and donated the proceeds to Hunter Legacy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2-1hz1juBI

23.01.2022 Preparing for more deliveries to Hunter Legacy widows tomorrow and watching zombie apocalypse movies to lighten the mood.

22.01.2022 http://www.theaustralian.com.au//df7230b8e6717098d7f85b20d

21.01.2022 http://www.abc.net.au//anzac-day-is-a-difficult-da/8470628

21.01.2022 http://www.theaustralian.com.au//e33e3012c0ace7b807c76350b

18.01.2022 "After serving in the war, most Australian veterans swore they’d never go back to Vietnam. But scores have since moved permanently to the southern port city of Vung Tau." http://www.smh.com.au//swearing-theyd-never-go-back-many-v

16.01.2022 Hunter Legacy extends a big thank you to Agnew Wines, the Pokolbin-based makers of such excellent drops as Cockfighter's Ghost, for its generous support of our fundraising efforts. Check them out at www.agnewwines.com.au

16.01.2022 Yes, the figure for Australia's WWI dead is about 20,000 short but this essay has other things going for it. https://www.smithsonianmag.com//is-all-still-quiet-on-wes/

15.01.2022 http://www.abc.net.au//website-outing-people-with-/8639170

14.01.2022 "What was Australia’s role in the conflict and what happened at home during the war and after it ended?" ABC Radio National provides an insightful overview, looking at the trail of training and battles, casualty rates, economic conditions, industrial action, food riots in Melbourne and much more. You'll find links to the radio documentary here: https://www.abc.net.au//the-centenary-of-the-firs/10461260

13.01.2022 Tales of Korea https://www.macleayargus.com.au//hector-lebrocq-finally-r/

12.01.2022 In 1970 a bunch of Aussie soldiers serving in South Vietnam recorded Christmas messages for their loved ones back home. You can watch the recordings of blokes from NSW here: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F04703/

10.01.2022 http://www.abc.net.au//2/being-a-war-veteran-at-27/8467046

07.01.2022 The latest death toll for Syrian government soldiers is about 90. http://www.theaustralian.com.au//316fad8a83933ac6bd680c4e8

07.01.2022 Urban warfare against Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-q0MIPfV_Q

04.01.2022 Preparing for day one of deliveries for Operation Silky White.

04.01.2022 https://vimeo.com/128373915

02.01.2022 Former US President George W Bush has painted portraits of American military people who were wounded, physically and psychologically, in wars waged under his command. He's also written a book to go with it. http://www.bushcenter.org//portraits-of-courage-exhibit.ht

01.01.2022 http://www.adelaidenow.com.au//1e063c99dc44418d20c6d2e35b8