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4 May, 2026
Family ties not forgotten
She said it was an honour to have her relative - Private Gilbert Martin - be the featured soldier in this year’s St Arnaud Anzac Day services.
ERIL Arundell has never forgotten the story of her great uncle.
And she doesn’t plan to anytime soon.
She said it was an honour to have her relative - Private Gilbert Martin - be the featured soldier in this year’s St Arnaud Anzac Day services.
“He was a very much loved member of our family," Ms Arundell said.
On the July 4, 1918, Australian and US Infantry led by Lieutenant General John Monash attacked German positions around the town of Le Hamel in northern France.
Allied losses for the Battle of Hamel were estimated at 1400 killed and wounded and included in these are Private Gilbert Martin and his mate Private Robert Harris who were killed on day one of the battle.
They are buried in the Blangy Tronville Cemetery in France.
A place Ms Arundell has visited a number of times.
“It took a lot of work, but we were able to be there as close as we could get to their graves,” she said.
“You did have to do a whole tour of the Somme to be able to get close, but it was all worth it.”
Ms Arundell said it was a very moving and life changing experience.
One she would never forget.
“I remember standing there, sobbing on the phone to my mum, because you just get so emotional,” she said.
“My mum was very interested in that part of history, but she did yell over the phone to tell me to stop.
“She herself was ex-army, but it’s just not something you would get worked up about in her generation.”
Villers Bretonneaux was also a place she met literal royalty.
“I went the same year the then Prince Charles went,” she said.
“You go through so much security and things to get there and I was a few rows back from him.
“As family of the fallen, he came across and shook our hands.”
Ms Arundell didn’t just stop at her family’s history in France, she has also visited the shores of Gallipoli twice.
While that was a highlight, Ms Arundell said she would always remember how Gallipoli would make her feel and leave her feeling for a long time after.
“As soon as you step foot on that soil, the soil that would have been trampled on and people died on, it just hits you,” she said.
“You just feel it, and I don’t think that feeling has ever gone away.”
It’s these feelings that made Ms Arundell passionate about preserving this part of our nation’s history.
“I was part of the local RSL for 25 years, I went to school here in St Arnaud,” she said.
“It means the world to me.”
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