A few days ago I visited for the first time the grave of my uncle (above left) in Vignacourt, northern France. The graveyard is a small one compared to some, on the edge of the village in the middle of farming country. My uncle was one of many who died in 1918, months from the end of the war. It seems strange that I could have an uncle who died so long ago but my father’s family was a big one. He was one of the youngest of ten in a family living in a then remote country area in northeast Victoria. George Duggan was the oldest son. And my father, one of the youngest, was forty when I was born. The photograph below shows the extended family in 1918, wearing black armbands. My father is the ten year old boy wearing a hat on the right front row (his sister – and schoolteacher - is next to him).
