AS the youngest of eight children, Shandra Ralph was always behind her older siblings when it came to family lore, but in the past few years she’s been doing some research and is amazed at the courage of her soldier father, and of his mother.

She knew her father, William Ralph, had been born in Nambucca in 1893 and lived there until he enlisted, that he’d fought in France and Belgium during the First World War and he’d played rugby in an army team.

“My father would never talk about the war, so we didn’t know many details,” says Shandra, “it was off-limits to us kids, and because it happened before any of us were born, we didn’t think about it.”

In the 1930s and early 1940s William was a top-rated axeman and the family travelled with him from their Sydney home to Nambucca and Coffs Harbour for work and country shows where wood-chopping events were big drawcards.

“I have vague memories of my Grandmother Annie, who died when I was ten, and also of some cousins.

“Dad was always Billy to his family,” Shandra recalls.

Then, in one of those twists that life sometimes throws up, more than 70 years after her grandmother died, Shandra bought a home near Urunga and soon started to look for clues about her Ralph family.

The day she walked into the Nambucca Museum and saw the photo of her father in his army uniform is a day she’ll always remember.

“I couldn’t believe it, and I called out ‘That’s my father!’.

“Then I read the story with the photo and all the little bits of memories fell into place.”

The story Shandra refers to commemorated the Armistice Day Centenary in 2018 and was written by Mick Birtles DSC, now a reporter with News Of The Area.

Birtles recounts how in 1915 William travelled to Sydney with his mother, Annie, to enlist in the army.

However, Annie was furious when the Department of Public Instruction decided the ten Indigenous children at the local school could no longer attend, saying she wouldn’t allow her son to fight for king and country if her children couldn’t be educated in public schools.

She withdrew her consent for William and he was discharged, but he was determined to join the army and less than a year later travelled to Lismore and enlisted.

Wounded in action in Belgium in 1917, William stayed at the front.

William and another soldier, Private Wheeler, returned to Nambucca Heads in September 1919 to a hero’s welcome.

Mick Birtles brings history to life as he tells a fascinating tale and it’s well worth a trip to Nambucca Museum to read the full story.

 

By Susan KONTIC