Reflections on the passing of a WW1 veteran

Anzac Day, 2024

This morning I attended the dawn service in Speers Point Park, a short walk from home. There were probably a thousand people there, as the familiar words were said, hymns were sung, and the Last Post was played. It is 110 years since The Great War began, and 109 years since the Gallipoli landings that Australia has commemorated ever since on 25 April every year. I found myself thinking again of that ill-fated campaign at the Dardanelles, and the subsequent involvement of Australia in the conflict that ensued. I found myself wondering again about my great grandfather, Charles Holford, who served with the AIF (Australian Imperial Forces) during WW1. When I got home I looked up my notes to refresh my memory of his life. My eyes landed on his death notice in the Sydney Morning Herald, and I reflected on how little a few lines tell of a life. 

Funeral notice. Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday 19 August 1954.

HOLFORD. The funeral of the late Lieutenant-Colonel CHARLES JOHN HOLFORD will leave St Clements Church of England, Raglan Street, Mosman, This Thursday, after service commencing at 12 noon, for Northern Suburbs Crematorium.

Family Notices (1954, August 19). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), p. 20. Retrieved June 4, 2023, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article29607354

What these notices say:

Charles Holford was a military man; he lived in Mosman in the leafy northern suburbs of Sydney at the time he died; he had five children, as named. His funeral was at St Clements Church of England, Mosman; he was cremated at Northern Suburbs Crematorium.

What they don’t say:

Charles Holford was born Charles John Holdorf, in Sydney city, but he grew up in the country. His parents were German immigrants, John Holdorf and Caroline Fischer, who had met and married in Sydney after their respective arrivals in Australia. They moved to Goulburn soon after Charles was born in 1869. John started a business as a general merchant in the fledgling European settlement, and became a well known local personality, a prominent (and at times controversial) member of the city council, a respected Freemason. Charles, who was the first of his eleven children, would spend almost half his life in Goulburn. When he was 29 he married a local beauty, Florence Stacey, who was (no doubt to his parents’ embarrassment) pregnant with their first child, my grandfather, also called Charles (I usually refer to them as Charles I and II). Florence’s father, George Stacey, owned a rival business in Goulburn, another general store; perhaps an alliance with his main competitor was not exactly what John Holdorf had in mind, but it happened just the same. Charles and Florence’s five children were born in Goulburn over the next ten years.

No widow is mentioned in the death notice or the funeral notice. That is because Florence died of diphtheria in 1908, at just 30 years of age, soon after the birth of her fifth child, Eric. Charles was forced to leave Goulburn and move to Sydney, since he needed someone to take care of the children. His widowed mother Caroline had moved back to Sydney after her husband died, and it was with her (and some of her spinster sisters) that Charles and his children ended up living, in Manly, a fledgling seaside resort on the north side of Sydney Harbour. His country born children became “city kids,” though Manly during the first decades of the twentieth century was more of a holiday village than a city suburb, a half hour ferry ride from bustling Circular Quay.

Amateur soldier

Despite the impression that the death notice gives, Charles was not a career soldier, but a travelling salesman for McMurtrey’s Shoes on the Southern Tablelands of NSW. He continued this even after his move to Sydney. His greatest love, however, was not shoes but the Goulburn militia, which he joined after he left school, having been a member of the army cadets even during his school days. Had he been born at a later time in Australian history he may well have become a professional soldier in the Australian Army, which at the end of the nineteenth century did not exist in the sense that it does today. 

In this local voluntary militia Charles rose through the ranks to become a lieutenant and then captain. He loved the uniforms and the discipline, the parades and the army camps, and became an expert rifleman, leading a team of shooters in various contests around the state. When his first son (my grandfather) was born he used to take him to military events, often dressed in his own child sized uniform, so that Grandpa became known forever by his siblings as the “little major,” or just “major.” I’m sure that local Goulburnites saw Charles Holdorf as quite eccentric, but the little major was adorable.  

Charles was a well known figure in Goulburn, as was his beautiful young wife. When Florence died so tragically the funeral was attended not just by friends and family but by a full military contingent.

Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 – 1931), Tuesday 14 April 1908, page 6.

THE LATE MRS. HOLDORF. The remains of Mrs. Holdorf (wife of Captain Holdorf), who died under sad circumstances, were interred in the Church of England Cemetery, at Goulburn. Archdeacon Bartlett officiating at the grave. The officers and men of G Company were present, Colonel Mallarky being represented by Lieutenant Fitzgerald. Colonel Michaelis, of Sydney, was in attendance, and officers of the company acted as pall-bearers. Among the many floral tributes were wreaths from the following: — Officers of 2nd Regiment (Sydney), Colonel Michaelis, employees of Messrs. McMurtrie and Company (Sydney), Southern Rifle Association, N.C.Os. and men of G Company, tbe 3rd A.L.H. Band, Goulburn Half Squadron, 3rd A.L.H, Duke of Edinburgh Royal Arch Chapter, and from well-known residents of Goulburn and Sydney.

Source https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/112966584# accessed 25 April 2024]

Western Front

When war broke out in 1914 Charles, at 45, was really too old for active service, but his command experience made him invaluable to the newly formed Australian Imperial Forces (AIF). He made the difficult decision to leave his five children, the youngest of whom was only seven, with his mother in Manly, knowing they may never see him again. He enlisted as an officer and embarked for Europe at the end of 1915, six months after the start of the disastrous ANZAC campaign at Gallipoli, the AIF’s baptism of fire. After a hot and dusty six months of training in Egypt, he travelled by ship across the Mediterranean, then by train through the beautiful French countryside of early summer, until he arrived at horrendous scenes of destruction in the north, which until then had only been hearsay to him and his battalion. 

It turned out to be a far worse experience than they ever could have imagined. Within days they were thrown into the fray at Fromelles, fighting against his parents’ countrymen. Those few fateful days in the summer of 1916 became the defining moment of Charles’ life. Fromelles, which was an outlier to the infamous Battle of the Somme, was the first major Australian engagement on European soil, and to this day remains the most costly Australian military engagement ever, with over 2000 casualties during a single night.

Health effects of war 

Charles escaped physical injury on the battlefield, though his psyche was forever scarred. He was promoted due to the horrific loss of so many officers, and continued service in the Somme campaign, in a different battalion, but was repatriated to Australia the following year due to illness, after which he promptly changed his birth name of Holdorf to Holford, determined to distance himself from his German ancestry. His mother listened with horror to his harrowing stories, but she kept her German name, as did his siblings. His children, of course, all became Holfords. 

The papers record that Charles spent six months in Randwick Hospital after his return, reportedly with some kind of heart condition, and finally was sent to Moree in the northwest of the state, to the hot mineral baths which have long been thought to have healing properties. I have wondered about this long hospitalisation, whether the explanation given is the full story, since a “dilated heart” is indicative of what today we call heart failure, which does not usually recover, whatever the cause. Yet recover he did, going on to live to the ripe old age of 85, at a time when average life expectancy for an Australian male was more like 70. 

What is more, at the end of his recovery he returned to his job as a travelling salesman, though at the same time becoming active in recruitment drives around NSW, telling the story of his experiences on the Western Front in towns around the country. Conscription was the hot political issue of the day, since as the war ground on fewer and fewer were volunteering for foreign military service, not helped by the return of so many young men broken in body and mind, not to mention the growing lists of fatalities (the same lists which now are memorialised in towns all across Australia).

I have wondered whether there was more to Charles’ diagnosis than a simple physical condition, perhaps caused by rheumatic fever or heart damage from a lung infection, which is what his records seem to suggest. Could it be that his physical symptoms were as much the result of a “broken heart” as a heart failing for other reasons – “broken” by the horrors he had witnessed and the losses he had known? Could it be that what happened during those six months of recuperation was as much a psychological recovery (perhaps through rationalisation and refocusing on what he could still do) as a physical convalescence.

Re-entry

Charles left the hospital determined to throw what strength he still had at 48 years of age into doing what he could for the young soldiers still on active service, by appealing to the people he met to send help. He became a staunch advocate for conscription, peppering his appeals with humorous stories of his time on the Front. A newspaper article from the Cootamundra Herald in November 1917 reflects this:

Cootamundra Herald (NSW : 1877 – 1954), Wednesday 21 November 1917, page 4.

COLONEL HOLDORF.

A Returned Officer revisits Cootamundra. 

Old friends at Cootamundra were glad to have a visit this week from one of the returned officers, Colonel Chas. Holdorf, who led his famous Anzacs on Gallipoli [this is an error – Charles actually arrived in Egypt when the Gallipoli campaign was ending and was not himself a veteran of that battle] and in France. After his return from the front he was six months in the Randwick hospital, with a dilated heart, and then was under treatment at the Moree baths; and now the doctors consider he is about back to normal…

Reminiscences of Cootamundra Heroes. 

… in the course of his speech, the Colonel — who is a very interesting raconteur — related some instances which, if somewhat gruesome, were not without their humorous side. And the stories lost nothing by the way they were told.  “I was in command of the 54th, and Colonel McConaghy had the 55th. “One night I sent over some shells to Fritz, and Fritz, strange to say, did not reply; but next morning “Mac” came over to me in a sweat. “Hey, Holdorf,” says he, “you poured them in on to Fritz last night, but instead of him retaliating on you, he sent ’em all over us, [damn] you, and got eighteen of our men!” (Laughter) … Another item: “Cootamundra boys were everywhere,” said the Colonel. “I asked someone to pick me out a smart lad. They got me one. He had all sorts of duties to perform. One cold morning he brought me in a billy of steaming hot tea, balanced on the end of his rifle. I looked at the tea. It was rather red. “Where the hell did you get the water?” I asked him. “In that shell hole over there, sir,” came the reply. “In that shell hole?” I exclaimed in horror. “Yes, sir!” “Well,” I said, “you can take and drink the [damn] stuff yourself, for there are some Fritzes lying in the bottom of that hole! (Laughter) I had rum instead that morning.” (Renewed laughter) …

How They Voted in the Trenches Last Year. 

“I was on the Somme last year, when the vote on conscription was taken,” said Colonel Holdorf later on, when the meeting was discussing the soldiers’ votes, “and I can tell you something about the voting. A pile of ballot papers came along when we were moving up, and just when there was an awful lot to think about. The boys were tired and weary and wet. We walked all day in mud, and slept in mud at night, with mud for our pillows. It was no time to be worried about voting. I could not give it any personal attention, but told the staff to give out the papers to the men under them. The men themselves had very little inclination to even discuss the subject among themselves. Those who voted “yes” said, ‘It might be a good thing to bring help along to us —it might give us some relief. God knows, we want it badly enough.” So they voted accordingly. Some did not bother either way; but the ones who went ‘No’ put it this way: ‘If they won’t come and help us, they can [damn] well stay at home!’ I am not in the habit of using language myself, but I am just telling you plainly the way the soldiers put it. (Laughter and applause) And today,” proceeded the Colonel, “the conditions are worse still. These lads have been fighting for nearly four years.”…

[Then followed a discourse on why it was so important that reinforcements be sent to the frontlines, and therefore why the referendum on conscription should get a yes vote. Charles concluded his rousing speech as follows:]

When they enlisted you promised to back them up, and, if necessary, to relieve them; but you have not been able to get those reinforcements. Those boys have made Australia — they have made its name famous throughout the civilised world. (Applause) The name of Australia will never die. Your children will sing about the glorious deeds of the Anzacs, (Applause) And there they are now — tired and sick and sore and war-worn. They want rest. Yet Australia is insulting them by asking the people here to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a question as to relieving them!  …”All I can say,” continued Colonel Holdorf, speaking warmly, “is that the man who votes ‘No’ should be put in the internment camp, along with the Germans; and the Germans should be let loose, upon him. (Applause.) That is what I would do with the dirty rotters who are going to try and defeat the movement to relieve the lads who want to come home and should come home. (Applause.) The brave men have their ties just as we have here. Many of them have their families, and are longing to see them again. They have already done their duty, and have done it well. Many have done far more than their fair share. (Applause.) Those who hang back here don’t give a hang if all our lads at the front are killed tomorrow, so long as they don’t have to go and fight themselves. I myself have been in hospital six months through being over there. The strain of looking after the 1,100 men under me told at last. However, thank God, when I came home they could not have treated me better, and the hospital people have got me right again. (Applause.) 

[Following Charles’ rousing address, one of the organisers, a Mr Pinkstone, thanked him:] I wish you had been in the park with me yesterday, Colonel, and heard the “anti” talk against the [recruitment] of soldiers. I believe an Anzac like yourself could have got a hundred recruits there yesterday. (Applause.) 

The meeting was much stirred by the visitor’s little address, and at the conclusion asked him if he would speak here on Monday, 3rd December, along with Mr. J. M. Chanter, M.H.R. The Colonel readily consented, and, further, said he would bring along the gas helmets (he went through the Gas School) and other curios from the front which, he felt sure, would interest his Cootamundra friends. As for talking about the Anzacs — he could talk about them all night. (Applause.) And he can talk! He’s one of the best returned soldiers we have listened to. 

The armistice in 1918 ended Charles’ military involvement – apart from telling stories – but he continued his old job as a travelling shoe salesman for another 15 or so years until retirement in the 1930s. He returned to the home in Manly where his children and his mother had spent the war, but his workplace remained centred on Goulburn, the area where he had started his professional life. His oldest son, my grandfather (the “little major”), had moved out of the family home in 1917 and found a job in Lithgow at an armaments factory. He, following his father’s call to arms, joined the army before the war ended in 1918, but never saw active service. Once discharged he pursued further studies and eventually became a teacher of technical studies at college level. Three of the Holdorf children lived with Charles well into adulthood, even after he later moved from Manly.

In August 1924 Charles’ mother Caroline died, aged 77. A few months later his first son, my grandfather (Charles II), married a lovely girl he had met during his time in Lithgow. Winifred (Winnie) Ross was not, however, a country girl, but came from Mosman, a leafy suburb on the northern shore of Sydney Harbour. An older sister of hers was married to an Anglican minister whose parish was in Lithgow, where Winnie was a frequent visitor. After their marriage the young couple settled in Northbridge, a suburb near Mosman on Sydney’s North Shore.

Soon after this, Charles senior [Charles I] moved with his adult children from Manly to Mosman, where he found a house on the same street as Win’s parents, William and Alice Ross. This made it possible for the Holford and Ross families to became acquainted; in view of their vastly different backgrounds I have often wondered what they made of each other. In 1933, the year my father was born, Charles I was still a traveller, and was living with three of his adult children (Marie 32, George 26 and Eric 24) at 82 Raglan Street, Mosman, just down the road from the Ross home.

War stories – processing life

Charles retired presumably around the age of 65 (in 1934) and lived after that on his war pension. One by one his children moved out, leaving him eventually alone in the Raglan Street house. I like to imagine that he became good friends with his neighbour William Ross, his daughter-in-law’s father. The two old men had plenty of time to see each other, and no doubt Charles regaled William with his war stories. The Great War was the biggest thing that had happened in either of their lives – both men had numerous friends and relatives who had served in varying capacities. Charles had a younger brother who had served – Lewis Holdorf. William had two younger brothers who had both enlisted despite being too old for active service. Malcolm, the older of the two, was involved only in “home service”. Hector, the youngest of the Ross brothers, falsely reported his age as 39 (he was actually 44) and was accepted into 33 battalion in May 1918. I have not been able to discover whether he ever made it to France, where the 33 battalion was engaged until the armistice in November, nor what became of him, since I have no record of his death. Charles’ oldest son was my grandfather – “Charles II” or “Chas” or “Major” as his family knew him – but despite his enthusiasm to be involved in the fight in Europe, the War ended before he could depart for the Western Front. William had five daughters, so none were soldiers. 

William, who was a churchgoing Christian, may well have helped Charles process his experiences from a spiritual perspective. It is hard to know what Charles made of all the religious stuff that William went on about. Charles had grown up in a family where religion was not a big thing – his father was Protestant from northern Germany and his mother Catholic from the south. Though he had married in a Presbyterian Church in Goulburn, church going appears not to have been a big part of his life during the ten years he and Florence were together before her death. They did not raise their children to be particularly involved or interested in God, or church, even if, like most people in those days, they were nominally Christian. William, on the other hand, was the son of a man who had experienced religious revivals in the Highlands of Scotland in the 1840s and 50s. William’s wife Alice, though Australian born, was the daughter of an Irish immigrant who had experienced Christian revival in Ireland in the 1860s, before he migrated to Australia in the 1870s. William and Alice raised their five daughters as regular churchgoing Christians, and their oldest daughter married a clergyman. It was almost certainly through the influence of this couple that Chas (Charles II) became a committed Christian, a thing that no doubt was somewhat bewildering for Charles senior. 

Charles it seemed, became a member of the Anglican Church in Mosman – St Clement’s – which is also on Raglan Street, just down the road from where he lived during the 1930s. How involved he was during those years, and whether this contact with Christians had much impact on his life, is unclear, but his funeral, many years later (in the 1950s), was held at St Clement’s. He certainly had many questions to ask God when he came to heaven, given the suffering he had seen in his life. 

William, who was eight years older than Charles, died at the beginning of 1939, as war clouds were again gathering in Europe. Through the Depression years and afterwards the two old men had watched the growth of National Socialism in Germany and the alarming events as the Nazis exerted their power and expansionist ambitions in Europe, but William never saw the result. Charles was 70 years old when Britain declared war on Germany, and would spend the next 6 years contemplating another World War even more devastating than the first. 

Second marriage in old age 

What Dad never knew, or at least has no memory of, was that Charles – his Grandpa Holford – remarried in 1942 at the age of 72. Dad was only eight at the time, and he was quite surprised, even skeptical, when I recently shared with him this piece of information which had turned up in my family research. Charles married a widow from West Wyalong named Jane Marshal. Where and how they met is uncertain, but they were together nine years before Jane died in 1951. They moved after their marriage to a different house, not far away, in Neutral Bay, so Dad presumably did not see Grandpa Holford when he visited his Ross grandmother in Raglan Street. She, incidentally, also remarried some years after William died – but that is another story.

Perhaps Dad’s father, (Charles II), did not approve of his father’s second marriage, and was not inclined to take his own children around to visit. Jane, as it happened, was Roman Catholic, and marriages between Catholics and Protestants in those days were still seen as somewhat scandalous. The fact that they married in an Anglican church – St Clements Mosman – apparently did not compensate for his decision to marry a Catholic. However, such sectarian bigotry probably meant little to the ageing Charles, whose own mother Caroline had been Catholic. Companionship in old age was more important than doctrinal differences. Whatever the reason, it seems that when Dad was about nine his Grandpa Holford (Charles I) disappeared out of his life. Dad has little memory of him after that time, though his Charles lived another 12 years after that.  

Remembering the fallen

When Jane died in 1951 Charles, the old WW1 veteran, was 82 years old, and found himself alone once again. He went to live with his son Eric, who had become a successful businessman, the owner of “Holford’s Hats” who lived in a mansion in Mosman with views out over Sydney Harbour. 

Anzac Day 1954 was Charles’ last, thirty seven years after his return from the battle scarred fields of northern France. I wonder if he made it to a dawn service in Mosman, where he remembered his old comrades as he listened to the familiar words of Laurence Binyon’s poem:

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted:
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Charles Holford, unlike his fallen comrades, came home to grow old, under the bright blue skies of the Great Southland. I have wondered whether as the sun was setting on his long and difficult life, he pondered if it would have been easier to have fallen with them that fateful day on Flanders Field.