Inspiring service to the community
Kevin Murrell’s story is a fascinating one and a great example of how anyone could be involved in bringing the stories of the Australiasn Lighthorsemen to life in order to cherish their memory. In Kevins words:
‘Around 2012 my wife Jo started doing some family research to try and find my grandfather (something we haven’t been able to do as yet) and while doing that she found a record that revealed my great grandfather on the maternal side had served and died in France during WW1, he was a Tunneller. Ironically we were saving to take the family to France but I couldn’t wait and we decided to go and do a Battlefield tour, follow in his footsteps and visited his grave. On day one of the tour we visited Tyne Cot and while standing in front of the grave of Sergeant Lewis Mcgee VC surrounded by 11,000 headstones I had an overwhelming feeling of having to do something to remember those men, they all have a story. Talking about it with our guide he suggested a place to start was to research the men on our local cenotaph so that’s what we did, that’s how I got to tell the story of the two Arthurs.
In the time I’ve been doing it I’ve had some amazing experiences and met some incredible people, been to the Western Front twice and walked the ground where boys from Batlow served, I’ve also walked Kokoda twice with Cams Cause, the foundation that has been put in place to honour the life of Cameron Baird VC, I’ve had people contact me and been able to offer advice and do research for them regarding their family member and help them with their trip to the Western Front, but by far the highlight has been learning about those from our home town who went and fought in a war half a world away, it’s something I’m incredibly proud of doing, to be able to stand in front of our Cenotaph and know the story behind the names of the men listed is something I’ll never forget.’
Another separate matter is the gates in the Memorial Park in Batlow and here is Kevin’s story:
‘The gates came about from our passion for our research I guess, Jo’s dad Les (Kevin’s father-in-law) had the idea of trying to find a set that had been in place in town from the 1950’s to the 1980’s, he was always interested in what we were doing and he thought it would be good to find them and put them back up. The search ended up being a bit of a treasure hunt and people all over town started looking, the funny thing was that the set that we found weren’t the ones we were after but the original set from the early twenties that the town had raised money for and put up after the war, parts of them were found behind a shed and one was rescued from the tip and was being used as a garden gate, the signage on them was also found except for the 1914 sign which has been replicated. Les is a fitter and turner by trade so he was able to restore them, paint them, and put them back in place not far from where they originally stood, I think they’re amazing, something which connects us to those back in the day who wanted to commemorate the men who never made it home.’