By ALENA HIGGINS
THE culmination of seven years of meticulous research by a local historian will be unveiled next Tuesday with the release of a new book documenting the WWI Pikedale Soldier Settlement Scheme.
Tipped to capture the curiosity, imagination and admiration of all Australians, “Soldier Settlers of the Granite Belt” also debunks the myth that returning soldiers were given land and set up for life.
Author and third-generation Stanthorpian Lorene Long said the book detailed the facts about one of the first soldier settler schemes in Queensland and how the settlement of Amiens grew from nothing to be a thriving community.
But it also acts as a sobering reminder that many of the returning WWI veterans battled just as hard to survive after the Great War as they did during it.
Ms Long, president of the local Historical Society and Stanthorpe Museum curator, said she discovered the general perception that soldier settlers were given plenty of training and monetary support failed to match reality when she delved deeper into her research.
“I didn’t find out what I thought I was going find,” Ms Long said, referring to the realisation that while the settlement at Amiens outside Stanthorpe was well intentioned, it proved to be ill-conceived and poorly administrated.
The hardship she uncovered was also confronting.
“There were records of a bush nurse … who went to the birth of a child and after the birth there was no food in the house to make a meal for the mother,” she said.
“These people were really poor. That has never been exposed before because families had their pride and all of these things should be put out to show just how tough the early people had it.
“I have people come into the museum and say to me, my grandfather was given land, why did he walk off and leave it?”
By 1937, only 25 of the original estimated 1,000 settlers were left, stemming from a host of setbacks including failed crops, untenable interest repayments and over capitalisation.
The 256-page book, which will be released at the Stanthorpe Museum on Tuesday at 5.30pm to coincide with Remembrance Day, features reference material, social history and first-hand accounts from families living at the time, as well as photographic imagery.
“I have been researching for seven years and have been traipsing down to Canberra and the Brisbane archives and Brisbane library as a lot of things you can’t get online and you need to get into the files. The research has been in-depth,” Ms Long said.
The public is invited to the book launch at a cost of $5, which will be donated to the museum. A must-do while there is to visit the display specially dedicated to the soldier settlers in the Amiens area, which features ingenious farm implements, household furniture and kitchenware created out of need, scarcity and poverty and used by soldier settler families.
The Queensland Government through their Queensland Anzac Grants Centenary Program provided the funding to print 1,000 copies of the book, which will be made available from the Stanthorpe Museum for $50 or online at stanthorpemuseum@gmail.com for $65, postage included.
All proceeds will be donated to the Stanthorpe Museum.
