Tag: Light Horse Regiment

Anzac Day links for students

With Anzac Day approaching, here are links, trailers, worksheets and activities to help commemorate our veterans and war animals.

My YouTube channel has many clips, start here, book-trailers include Light Horse Boy and Lighthouse Girl, student’s trailers. Watch a Theatre 180 stage preview and song, and Destination WA Breaksea Island TV segment. You can see me reading The Last Light Horse high in the Snowy Mountains and hear reflective Covid Anzac Day thoughts at the Desert Mounted Corp Memorial. Or listen to a conversation about historical fiction with Elaine Forrestal.

Each book on my website has a dedicated page, with teaching activities, worksheets and story background information. Please also check out my blog. There are dozens of Anzac-linked posts. Try typing in book titles. For example, if you search In the Lamplight, you’ll find out about the wallaby and cockatoo living at Harefield Hospital during WWI. Or click the Anzac Category on blog sidebar to find Semaphore and Morse charts, interviews, Kokoda Track links to Photographs in the Mud, Purple Poppies, and the amazing 2015 The Giants street theatre event.

I hope these activities and links are helpful as we remember the courage and sacrifice of our veterans, their horses and animal mascots. Lest we forget.

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The Only One to Come Home

Around 136,000 horses were sent from Australia to the First World War. Just one came home; Sandy, the favourite horse of Major General Bridges.

Sandy was raised in the high country of Victoria. He carted bricks in Tallangatta until the O’Donnell family donated him to the war effort.

The strong Waler soon became the favourite of Major General Bridges. They travelled from Melbourne together on the Orvieto flagship, joining other ships of the 1st AIF convoy in Albany.

From Albany, the convoy of Australian and New Zealand ships travelled to Egypt where the men trained near the pyramids. Then in April, they sailed to the Gallipoli peninsula. It was too steep to land Sandy and the other horses.

A few weeks after the landing, Major General Bridges was shot by a sniper. Legend has it that the Major General’s dying wish was for Sandy to return to Australia. Those wishes were honoured in 1919.

The Last Light Horse explores Sandy’s journey from Tallangatta, through the war years until his death in Maribyrnong in 2023, via text, archival images, and evocative charcoal sketches by Brian Simmonds. This week, in the lead-up to Remembrance Day, I will be posting images on Instagram to honour the men, women, and animals who sacrificed so much during wartime. Lest we Forget.