Dimensions
176 x 214 x 23mm
When the Anzacs landed on what has become the sacred soil of Gallipoli, they established a powerful Australian legend. Since 25 April 1915, this legend has grown ever greater, and still shapes the ways Australians think of themselves as a nation.
One of the little-known aspects of the legend is the large body of verse, story, song and other forms of expression created by those first Anzacs, and by succeeding generations who experienced war. These "echoes of Anzac" are an important part of Australia's popular literature and folklore heritage.
These items survived in oral tradition and also in trench newspapers, battalion newsletters, diaries, letters, smoko song sheets, unit songbooks and a host of other mostly obscure sources.
Collected by Graham Seal over twenty years from little-known sources in archives and in memories, and assembled together for the first time in this collection, these verses, ditties and yarns present a "digger's-eye view" of Australia at war and a virtual folk history of events that profoundly shaped our sense of ourselves as a nation.