Paula Xiberras
If ANZAC John Charles Barrie was called Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up, by his grandmother then his granddaughter Judy Osborne might be a Tinkerbell in creating magic by bringing his book, written in 1930, down from its fairy dusted shelf to publication, especially in this the centenary anniversary of the Gallipoli landing. It’s ironic too that John Charles Barrie was related to the English author James M. Barrie from whom he may have inherited his writing talent. This is not where the allusions to the novel Peter Pan end, with parallels that might be drawn with the novel’s characters of the lost boys, who fell out of their prams and went to Neverland. It doesn’t take much imagination to make the connection with the young men who went to the Neverland of war.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Judy Osborne recently about her grandad John Charles Barrie who as well as being an ANZAC was a fine horseman, famer, builder of model ships and author. Judith who has visited Tasmania several time, as recently as spending two weeks in Launceston about 14 months ago, notes the further Tasmanian connection with her grandad’s family emigrating to Tasmania from Scotland before settling in Victoria.
Judy’s grandad passed away a year before she was born but she seemed destined to get to know him in the process of bringing to life his book, which befitting a modern day Tinkerbell has a fairy tale history of how it came to be published. The book was put on the shelf by her grandad, then in her grandmother safe keeping until it passed to her mother and 26 years ago the book came into Judy’s hands, since then it’s travelled through the family to their common pride.
The unique thing about the book says Judith, is that it is probably the only Anzac memoir written completely by a soldier who was on the frontline.
From very early on John Charles Barrie was keen to do two things ‘to be a soldier and a farmer’ two careers his Mum didn’t want for him, so she encouraged him to take on a bank clerk position which in no way deterred him and he went on to do five years of training and becoming an officer before he joined the 8th battalion that left Australia from Port Melbourne on the HMS Benalla. They joined the New Zealand ships in Albany and sailed off together for additional training before landing at Gallipoli.
Given that Barrie was a fine soldier Judy also highlights some of her grandad’s adventures that further establishes the link of adventurous spirit between him and the other Barrie’s fictional hero. In one such situation when he was unfit for service and was placed in a Weymouth depot as a machine gun instructor. Judy quotes from the book:
“He was so good at this job that he inadvertently rendered himself indispensable. His commanding officer would not let him leave, even after he was declared fit. He desperately wanted to get back to his battalion on the front line. Eventually he went AWOL, not to get away from the war, but to get back to it. With the aid of an accomplice in the London office, and using very unorthodox means, and a great deal of stealth, he stowed away on two trains and a ship, and finally got back to his battalion”
Judy says ‘despite all of its ‘horrors’ it was largely in the trenches of the first world war that our peculiar but beautiful Aussie humour was conceived.’
Some of those horrors are reflected in the following passage by Barrie on page 48 of the book.
‘When a shell burst a few feet from us, and I felt a blow like a sledge hammer on my left shoulder and another on my right leg, and I toppled over. I tried to pick myself up, but my left arm was broken and crumpled up under me, and I flopped again. I managed to sit up and found Captain Sergeant sitting up also. I asked him if he were hit. He smiled and said,
“Yes, but it’s nothing,” and fell back dead.’
On a lighter note ,Judy’s grandad also demonstrated some ingenuity such as his solution to the loud parties that went on next door to him at Weymouth where ‘a young officer’ ‘partying every night until 2 or 3am with a gramophone blaring and keeping everybody awake’
‘he went on to acquire an acetylene gas generator a length of rubber hose and a brace and bit, drilled a hole in the wall between the two rooms poked the hose through attached the other end to the gas generator and shoved the generator under the bed. grandpa went to bed that night and waited for the party to start when it was in full swing he turned on the gas and let them have it causing an uproar in the next room and a stampede out of there he allowed them to check his room where they found nothing except him in his pyjamas!’
Judy says: “Grandpa was very proud that he had the distinction of being the first officer in the British army to conduct a gas attack.”
After the war Barrie fulfilled his other ambition of being a farmer buying a soldiers settlement and was also made an honorary colonel.
Judy adds that her Grandad’s book is not a glorification of war and she says ‘I do wish we could live in a world without war’.
At the same time says Judy ‘we should not ignore and must not forget the sacrifices that our forefathers and others made’
‘and we must not forget those lost boys that found themselves in the Neverland of war and like Peter Pan never had the chance to grow up.
Memoirs of an ANZAC by John Charles Barrie is out now published by Scribe Publishing.
