Discover your past in Wycheproof

The War Heritage Roadshow, Caring for Collections Day
 at Mount Wycheproof Museum
 A free event to celebrate the 100th anniversary of WWI armistice.
Find out the story behind some of your family history treasures and learn how to care for your precious memorabilia from experts from Melbourne University at this special event at the Wycheproof Community Museum, Mount St, Wycheproof on Monday 20 November.
Marion Parker is one of the experts to visit Wycheproof. Marion, a textile conservator, she worked on conserving the Wycheproof Autograph Flag. She will be joined by Jude Fraser a senior conservator with expertise in preservation of paper documents and photographs.
These experts will be on hand to appraise items and memorabilia from all modern conflicts from WWI, WWII, Vietnam and middle east theatres. No weapons or munitions.
Two sessions are offered:

• In the morning, from 10am to 1pm, experts can advise and discuss conservation of artefacts, textiles and uniforms, and ephemera including prints, photographs and documents.
• The afternoon session, from 2pm to 4pm join a 'how to' workshop on storing, cleaning and researching military history.

For information see the website and see this link to book your time with the experts. Or search for War Heritage Roadshow 2017.
Your local contacts are Elaine Storey phone 03 54 937 525 or Maureen McKersie phone 03 54 937 592.

Vietnam Framed

In his speech at the ANZAC Day service, Paul Haw had mentioned that his father had bought him a camera when he was called up for National Service in 1967. “Dad had said, they are taking Minolta cameras to the moon”, and so we went to Bendigo and bought one and I took mine to Vietnam, he said.

During his time he captured on film fellow soldiers at work and Vietnamese villagers and their daily activities. From that time he amessed a body-of-work of around 500 photographs and, with his wife Cathie, has put together 70 framed photographs in an exhibition ‘Vietnam framed’.

The exhibition is a collaborative undertaking between Wycheproof RSL sub-branch, Wycheproof Historical Society and Boort Development Committee. It is open at the Court House, High St, Wycheproof, Sunday to Friday until 7 May.  

There are photographs of Vietnamese school children and children at work getting water from a well repaired by Australian soldiers, juxtaposed with himself on a Howitzer gun, Chinook and Huey helicopters, piles of shell casings, tangled barbed wire and other detritus of war. Each photograph is captioned and tells but a snippet of the story of men named Peter, Steve, Shorty and Jock; perspectives of war in the jungle, and village life in rural Vietnam.

He said the photos and captions and the work collating the exhibition were a release for him and helped him emotionally. This record of life has also helped families of Vietnam veterans. He recalled one family whose father had returned from the Vietnam War broken emotionally and spiritually. Paul said he had met the man’s daughter and was able to provide photos of his time in Vietnam to show her and her family that at one time he had been a happy man. 

The Minolta camera is part of the exhibition, as too are letters saved by his mother. In opening the exhibition Mr Haw said that he had received letters daily from his large extended family, he had 57 first cousins and 20 aunties who all wrote to him, but when evacuated from Vietnam he had burned all those letter. When he arrived home his mother presented him with a package, she had kept every letter he had written to her.  

ANZAC Day 2017 RSL Wycheproof Branch speaker Paul Haw and photographic exhibition

A Gunner’s view of Vietnam remembered

With his Minolta AL-F camera, Gunner Paul Haw took hundreds of photos after being called up to National Service in 1967 to serve in Vietnam. On ANZAC Day he will tell his story at the Wycheproof Branch RSL service in Centenary Park at 11.00am and at 1.30pm an exhibition of 70 photographs will be opened at the Courthouse in High St.

     The photographs are an essay, telling the story of his time with his battalion and depicting life in rural Vietnam during the war.

     His service in Vietnam was cut short in a minefield on Good Friday 1968, when two mates died and he was one of five injured.  Paul Haw returned to Australia and home to Boort where the environmentalist and historian has since run a family business and co-authored a history, ‘Footprints across the Loddon Plains’.

    The exhibition will be open Sunday to Friday 10am to 4pm for two weeks, last day will be Sunday 7 May. For further information phone Mobile 0409 937 525 or 03 5493 7525, or   see the Wycheproof Historical Society newsletter at,  http://wycheproofhistoricalsociety.blogspot.com.au/