General News
23 November, 2025
Reflections at memorial
HERE was heightened poignancy when Gordon Wright placed wreaths on the restored war memorial at St Arnaud Cemetery.
HERE was heightened poignancy when Gordon Wright placed wreaths on the restored war memorial at St Arnaud Cemetery.
Gordon, vice-president of the St Arnaud RSL sub-branch, on Remembrance Day honoured family members who had served in World War One and World War Two and are buried in the cemetery.
In World War One, Charles and Septimus Wright both fought at Gallipoli. And then in World War Two, Gordon’s mother Ethel Estelle was an army nurse.
His father Joseph and uncles Douglas and James Wright were in the Australian army along with their brother-in-law, Bill Medlyn.
Another uncle George, who was from Donald but buried in St Arnaud, served in the Navy.
With his brothers going off to war James Wright, who hadn’t reached the minimum age for enlistment, put his age up by two years and he was accepted into the forces.
He was taken prisoner by the Japanese and spent time in Changi the prisoner of war camp in Singapore.
He was a prisoner of the Japanese and spent his 21st birthday at Changi.
The cemetery memorial was erected in memory of all ex-service men and women who lie buried in the St Arnaud Cemetery.
It stands next to an Aleppo Pine tree that was grown with a seed from the original lone pine on Gallipoli. A Grant from the Victorian Government’s war memorial restoration fund in 2024 allowed the St Arnaud RSL Sub-Branch to restore the 60-year old memorial.
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