[Tony Smith]

Dennis, aka forum member "Dinty", has sent me the following pic and story, mainly about Remembrance Day, but I thought it would be more appropriate here:

" I was on my way to Coonabarabran, we stopped at Who'd a Thought it, a Lookout in Quirindi to observe 11/11/05 at 1100hrs, we travelled on after observing a minutes silence and coming into the village of Breeza, I thought of how many fella's from this part of the world didn't return and I thought of the small memorial and wondered if anyone had observed the the ritual there in Breeza. Well, I was dismayed when I arrived at the memorial to find it in an unkempt state, weeds everywhere and not even a flower or wreath, etc at the site. What a disgrace I thought!. I stopped and took some pix. We travelled on through Gunnedah and out towards Mullaley where I was relieved to see the towns memorial was clean and mowed and the flag was flying at half mast, with the primary school in close proximity I assumed that the school children possibly participated in a ceremony there. Tony could you please post this in MLU for me as I haven't got any idea of how to post pix."

Despite the obviously sad state this memorial is in, it is actually another good example of the type of memorial found in many similar small villages across Australia (Max, note the Red Ensign!). Breeza today would possibly only have a couple of hundred residents, and in it's heyday would have mustered less than 2000 souls. Yet like many other districts, a large proportion of the young male population volunteered for WW1, and with the full blessing and support of the community. The loss of even a handful of these men would have been keenly felt and the response of a small community to to such tragedies was to fund such a significant memorial. This one, like Rydal (was), is surmounted by a captured German Maxim