Category Archives: History

All Quiet on the Western Front

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I too have been reading All Quiet on the Western Front after only glancing through it in the 1980’s school book assignment. Thirty years later, I’m ready to really read it and contemplate what all soldiers and animals (mainly horses) when through 100 years ago. #ANZAC

What Crosses My Mind

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I’ve been reading the book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and it’s one of those books that when you look at the cover you’re like “ehh looks slow” but once you start reading it, it really grabs you and you want to keep reading. It’s about a soldier and his fellow soldiers on the battle field of World War 1 and how things were from their point of view. I had always heard of WW1 and WW2 and I always had an idea that is was a struggle for soldiers who fought, but my idea of their struggles was just death and starvation. Little did I know that they had lice, trench foot, and barely showered. It’s much worse than I thought it to be. Books like these sort of “humble” you in a way. For a while you put your life into perspective and…

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Have you posted your old photos on social media yet? It will be a hit!

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Shell Facebook Banner

Nostalgia has definitely made it’s way back into retail marketing, but it is also making an impression in other industries as well, with social media facilitating nostalgic brand and marketing strategies. The free platforms like Facebook and WordPress also put this ability into the hand of local museums, historical societies, galleries and community groups.

As Shell fast approaches five million followers, it’s Facebook banner featured a nostalgic 1960/70’s image. Even as the brand talks innovation, a high-tech and advanced technologies, the old Shell station resonates with thousands of Facebook followers liking and sharing the picture.

Brand nostalgia is not a mutually exclusive to retail marketing strategy, as proven by Coca-Cola time and time again. Social media now provides several unique platforms to marry nostalgia with other seemingly divergent strategies as refreshing (excuse the pun) and social engaging content.

Note the branding is consistent over the years, the Shell logo from back then is still representing the company today, creating continuity.

So if major brands are engaging with their “fans” and getting free advertising from those fans sharing, liking and promoting the brand, why not take steal the strategy and implement it in your not for profit organisation? Most NFPs have plenty of volunteers will to help and those with a more ‘senior’ member demographic may be able to use social media as a way of attracting younger interest into the organisation.

As we speak, social media marketing teams are raiding their corporate museums, archives and googling for “cool” retro images to fit in to their current brand strategies. Social media provides a ready tool for the quick, low cost, distribution of historical images allowing fans and followers to further engage with fond memories and simpler times (pre-social media) when the brand was with them.

Have you looked at your retro photos yet? Post them and people will like and share them…. why else would advertisers being do it! Grow your fan base, attract new interest and membership while bring your NFP into this century and increasing accessibility to your collection.

Add a copyright message, but only put things up on the internet that you are prepared to see copied and re-appearing elsewhere, with or with a credit.

The last World War Two soldier

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I was in a rush one day before Remembrance Day and quickly ducked into Quinton’s IGA in Warrandyte for some groceries. As I entered, I passed an elderly gentleman seated with this tray full of poppies fund-raising for the Returned Services League (RSL) of Australia. He had a baseball cap on and, like most men of a more respectable era, dress pants and an a jacket despite the warm weather. On his lapel were several badges and of course, a blood-red poppy. I back tracked, ignoring my urge to rush in and out of the shop as quick as I could, with my conscience telling me I needed to buy a poppy.

IMG_9553As I passed over my donation to support veterans, I asked the old Digger when did he serve. He answered “World War Two, I’m the last one.” I paused for a moment, thinking about of his understated remarks, ladened with a magnitude of meaning that I could not ever really hope to comprehend. Firstly, this proud but frail man sitting in the grocery store had served in a battle so great it is titled a “World War.” How could anyone who had never served on a battlefield hope to understand what that meant?

Secondly, I was caught off guard by simple but powerful words “I’m the last one.” I tried doing arithmetic about WWII, did he mean the last standing Digger in Australia or this local area or his battalion? I had to ask, but it did not matter if he was the last one in the country or the last one in the local area, anyone who says they are the “last one” of a group of friends, soldiers or a generation carries a heavy burden.

He was the last WWII Digger of the Warrandyte RSL Club.

The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) and the term “Diggers” became famous during the drawn out battles of WWI. The name Diggers has stuck to Aussie soldiers for over ninety years – not only known for their courage under fire, but their ability to dig in under the arduous circumstances.

RSL Club’s once graced nearly every town in Australia and are familiar as the proverbial kangaroo to Australians of all ages. Once flooded with returned soldiers from both World Wars and later Korea and Vietnam, the Clubs have slowly emptied, some closing their doors, ‘consolidating’, as Diggers from the Great War, then the following wars, slowly thinned in their ranks with the passing of time.

The rush of modern-day life then caught up with me, I had to move on: get the shopping done, get the kids and get moving. But that thirty-second conversation stayed with me, played on my mind…. “I’m the last one” and soon there would be none.  I wondered if someone had captured his story, recorded his thoughts, this Last Digger of Warrandyte. The last of his generation. The last of his mates.

IMG_8970Many weeks passed and I started a documentary photography course at Melbourne’s RMIT University under the direction of esteemed photographer Michael Coyne. We had to come up with subject ideas for our portfolio of photos and this Last Digger came to mind. My final project concept ended up being “Roundabout to Roundabout”, documenting life between Warrandyte’s two roundabouts, starting at the CFA Fire Station and ending at the Roundabout Cafe several kilometres away.

By this stage Remembrance Day had passed and there was no sign of the Last Digger at the local IGA. I would have to do my project without the poppy seller in my portfolio of life between the roundabouts. As I spent too many hours stalking people and businesses along Warrandyte Road, I got used to the rhythm of the old township, got to know the shop keepers by day and even several by night as the project developed.

And then on the last day of my portfolio shooting in Warrandyte, I saw in the distance a man in a baseball cap with a bit of a slow shuffle, making his way between the roundabouts. Despite the hot day, he was well dressed with a jacket and slacks and had his tray of RSL knickknacks in hand, still fundraising for current veterans and their families well passed Remembrance Day.

In one of my next blogs I will tell the remarkable story of the Last Digger of Warrandyte. In the meantime, I encourage anyone who knows a WWII soldier to ask them about their service…  before it is too late.