ANZACS born in the Forest (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Thursday, April 25, 2013, 01:07 (4235 days ago) @ jhopkins

The thoughts and sincere gratitude of this "exiled" Forester are with all our friends & families "down-under" this ANZAC Day 2013.

Having just been reminded by Rita's earlier post that ANZAC Day is here again, I thought you may be interested in the following, altho I appreciate it's only tenuously linked to the Forest if at all. As much as I'd have loved my only son to have been born a Forester, the Dilke maternity wing had long closed and sadly my wife didn't give birth while visiting Cinderford at Christmas 1996, so a week later he became a fully fledged son of West Middlesex. We live perhaps 3 miles from the village of Harefield which is on the extreme western edge of the Greater London builtup area. In the time I've been here Harefield has become famous worldwide thro' it's Hospital and their fantastic pioneering work in heart surgery. However it was only about five years ago I found this famous Hospital owes it's very existence to the ANZACS from The Great War.
My wife and I were closely involved with our lad's primary school PTA activities, leading us to become linked with Harefield's School too. We then learnt all about the ANZAC Hospital and the great efforts made by that School to keep alive the memories of the many hundreds of brave Australians and New Zealanders who were treated there. Sadly over one hundred men never returned home and were buried at the Parish Church of St Mary, later today there will be a full Remembrance Service. Among many others local children will attend, some laying flowers on the graves just as happened over ninety years ago.

These link give much more detail to what I hope is an interesting subject.

http://www.harefield-jun.hillingdon.sch.uk/About+Us/Our+Anzac+Story/
http://www.ezitis.myzen.co.uk/briefhistoryauxhosps.html

This very tastefully presented film shows the Church and particularly the ANZAC graves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTXPxjJKeRI

RIP Diggers & Kiwis, thanks so much for your sacrifices.