I have been thinking about the young men and women who were at Gallipoli from April 2015 onwards.
Syd, Clegg and Charlie were three of them.
Syd is Sydney Middleton (to the right of the officer in this picture).
Clegg is Frederick Kelly.
Charlie is Charles Savory.
All three were elite sportsmen before the War. Syd and Clegg were gold medallists at the London 1908 Olympic Games (for Australia in rugby and Great Britain in rowing, respectively). Charlie was a New Zealand rugby union and rugby league player who played for Australasia in the 1911-1912 Rugby League Test Series against Great Britain.
Syd will be an important character in my research on the 1919 Peace Regatta. He survived Gallipoli and the Western Front. He died in 1945.
Clegg was wounded twice at Gallipoli but survived. He went to the Western Front and died in the Battle of the Somme in November 1916. His gravestone is in the Martinsart British Cemetery.
Charlie died on the beach at Anzac Cove on 8 May 1915. His gravestone is at Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery.
They are just three of the Gallipoli stories. This has been a week for remembering.
Photo Credits
ANZAC Cove (State Library of South Australia, CC BY 2.0)
1919 Henley Peace Regatta AIF Crew (no known copyright)
Frederick Kelly (BBC Radio 5)
Charles Savory (Daily Telegraph, Sydney)
