Blog Day 191 - 02 October 2020

Welcome to virus free Friday.

Some of you maybe aware that I volunteer at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance (SoR), so having nothing else to talk about today I thought that I might tell you a little about the Shrine and the role of the volunteers.

The Shrine was built between 1927 and 1934 to commemorate the service and sacrifice of Victorians and Australians in The Great War (TGW) also known as World War 1.  More than 400,000 Australians volunteered to serve in TGW and of these 320,000 served overseas.  Approximately 62,000 Australians died in TGW and another 150,000 were wounded (including my grandfather and a great uncle).  

Remember these numbers are from population of about 4.5 million.  Another thing to remember is that the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) which was the force that was formed to serve overseas was one of the few armies in TGW that was wholly volunteer.  

After the war and after the forces had returned to Australia Victoria decided it needed a memorial to the service of it's people.  There was much debate and argument which got very heated and political about what should be built and where.  There were a number of options including a cenotaph similar to the one in Whitehall in London to be built near the corner of Spring and Bourke street which would have involved the demolition of part of the Windsor hotel.  Another option was to build something useful such as a memorial hospital and the third option was structure such as the Shrine.

As you can see the Shrine option won out and there was a competition held for the design of the building and surrounds and we ended up with the building that you can see in the photo above.

After the 2nd World War the Shrine forecourt was developed as a memorial to the Victorians and Australians who served in the that war.  The forecourt, which replaced a reflecting pool, includes a cenotaph, eternal flame (lit by QE II {the lady not the boat} in 1954) and three flagpoles.  There is a photo of the forecourt above which also gives you a good idea of the view of the city from the Shrine.

There is also a memorial garden to commemorate the post 2nd World War conflicts and peacekeeping performed by Australians over the years.

Now on to the volunteers.  The Shrine has approximately 140 volunteers who in usual times normally attend the Shrine for one shift a week.  We can do either a morning or afternoon shift and there are volunteers there 7 days a week.  I usually work the Thursday afternoon shift and there are six volunteers who regularly do that shift.  The weekday volunteers are usually from an older cohort as most are retired.  The weekend shifts can be a bit younger as they don't necessarily have to be retired.

In the early 2000's the Shrine opened a visitor centre and in 2014 we opened our Galleries of Remembrance.  The Galleries are under the Shrine and are an incredible museum devoted to Australia's military history.

Most of the volunteers, as you could imagine, have an interest in things military, many have served in either the regular services or part time services, we have a number of Vietnam veterans who are volunteers.  Many of us have relatives who have served and therefore have an interest in the personal stories around military service.

The above is a photo that I took of some volunteers on the forecourt of the Shrine attending a commemorative service.

Our usual role at the Shrine includes taking school groups on guided tours, taking adult groups such as Probus on guided tours and assisting the general public with directions around the building and providing explanations and information to the public.  Many people come in trying find out more about relative's service, maybe places where a relative served or to look up their names in our books of remembrance.

In a normal year we will get between 70,000 and 80,000 school students come through the Shrine on guided tours.  They range in age from early primary school up to VCE students.  Due to the way the school curriculum works most school groups are either grade 5 or year 9 students.  The tours we do with them vary with the age groups and also what they are studying at the time.  Some school tours will include them dressing up in uniforms, handling artefacts from both the military and civilian experience of war, obviously no weapons are included in these tours.  We try and encourage an interchange of ideas and discussion with the students about aspects of war service but also how the wars effected the people at home.  This can take us into areas such as conscription, rationing, service to country and how the troops were handled when they returned home.

One of the interesting things with the school groups is that you never quite know which direction the discussion if going to go.

Of course none of us are attending the Shrine at the moment and I haven't been there since the middle of March and we really don't know when we will be going back.  The Education staff at the Shrine have done a great job of keeping in touch with the volunteers, by way of newsletters, emails, twice weekly zoom meetings and discussions.  I am sure that we are all hankering to get back there one day in the not too distant future.

As they say "Lest we Forget"