Soldier Record

He was my great great grandfather. He was blown up in Gallipoli In world war 1 and assumed dead. To check whether he was alive, an australian soldier put a bayonet through his leg, aparently his arm twitched. They took him to Malta where he was diagnosed with severe injuries and memory loss, the only thing he would say was "polly", the nickname he had for his wife. His wife back home was determined her husband was alive and tried on numerous occasions to find him. Her children (my great grand mother and her siblings) had been told there father was killed in action and was never coming back, "Polly" was also claiming widows pension. His wife tried one last time to try and locate him, she gave his distinguishing features, his tightly curled black hair and what looked like a dimple in his cheek, which was actually a mark where a tooth pick had gone through his cheek after falling over at a diner party where he'd drunk a bit to much!

Finally they found him, but my great grandmother would never properly accept that William was her father til she was much older. And refered to him as her picture daddy as she had been given a picture of him when he had been assumed dead!