Wednesday 30th October
David Hay, Military Historian
Two years ago, David Hay gave a talk to us about a painting of a British WW1 soldier he had found in a Melbourne auction house. Through his research he discovered that the soldier was Henry Farrer, who served in the Royal Field Artillery and received the Military Cross for his heroic acts. When David gave his last talk here, he and his wife Leigh were about to make a trip to England to return the painting to Henry Farrer’s family. The whole village of Bridport turned out to see the painting handed over to his descendants.
Last year David and Leigh traveled to France with the Henry’s family to visit his grave on the anniversary of the day that he was killed. David has done an enormous amount of research about the early history of Henry and the circumstances surrounding his death. He also gave us information about the two other soldiers who were, as it transpired, killed by the same shell just a few days before Armistice. Leigh has written a fictional book about Henry and David a non-fiction book about him. David made the talk most enjoyable and interesting with plentiful pictures of Henry and the places he lived and was educated in and he read extracts from both books.
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