My maternal grandfather, Archibald Robert Thomas EVITT, was born in Newtown, Sydney in 1887.
He went by the name 'Tom' - his father's name - but 'Archie' would have suited him equally well.
My grandfather was a knockabout kind of bloke, one who had learnt to survive in the 'school of hard knocks'.
When he was a teenager he had been ostracised by his family and had to earn a living by 'carrying his swag outback'.
When World War I broke out, he enlisted with the Australian Infantry Force (AIF) and went to Egypt for the Suez campaign and to the Western Front.
He was finally sent back home for having flat feet.
Why it took them so long to discover this would be impossible to know.
He complained about having cold feet for the rest of his life as a result of them freezing in the trenches in France.
Back in Sydney, he married Ethel May Fitzgerald at Drummoyne in 1918.
He was aged 31 and she was 33.
Apparently being married to a younger man must have bothered my grandmother, because my mother was always ashamed to admit that she had followed in her footsteps.
She always kept her date of birth hidden so as not to disclose the seven month age difference between her and my father.
He went by the name 'Tom' - his father's name - but 'Archie' would have suited him equally well.
My grandfather was a knockabout kind of bloke, one who had learnt to survive in the 'school of hard knocks'.
When he was a teenager he had been ostracised by his family and had to earn a living by 'carrying his swag outback'.
When World War I broke out, he enlisted with the Australian Infantry Force (AIF) and went to Egypt for the Suez campaign and to the Western Front.
He was finally sent back home for having flat feet.
Why it took them so long to discover this would be impossible to know.
He complained about having cold feet for the rest of his life as a result of them freezing in the trenches in France.
Back in Sydney, he married Ethel May Fitzgerald at Drummoyne in 1918.
He was aged 31 and she was 33.
Apparently being married to a younger man must have bothered my grandmother, because my mother was always ashamed to admit that she had followed in her footsteps.
She always kept her date of birth hidden so as not to disclose the seven month age difference between her and my father.
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