AFTER six years, the Wentworth Military Collection’s Community Wall of Memory is nearly complete – but the team are asking for community help to put the finishing touches to the display.
The Wall of Memory was unveiled at the beginning of the World War I centenary commemorations in 2014 and over the years hundreds of locals and visitors have added poppies to the display, which features silhouettes of WWI Diggers.
Now, Wentworth Military Collection curator Russell James hopes the community can help fill the wall in time for this year’s Anzac Day commemorations.
“There’s not a lot of space left,” he said.
“We’ve completed our first silhouette and are working on our second.
“We reckon there’s about 300 poppies left to complete the Community Wall of Memory, so it’d be nice to be able to get that completed.”
Poppies are available from the museum’s gift shop.
“For $3 you get your poppy, you inscribe your message, and it goes up on the Community Wall of Memory to complete the soldiers’ silhouettes,” Mr James said.
“Each one of the poppies is individually signed with a name or service number, or a message of hope or peace.
“The collective of them gives quite a nice energy to the space, knowing that those messages are part of that display.”
According to Mr James, adding a poppy to the wall is often quite a personal experience for visitors.
“A lot of the service numbers and names up on the poppies are of family members,” he said.
“People make the dedication to have that personal connection to the Wall of Memory.”
For Mr James, fostering the personal connections is one of the most important aspects of war memorials and collections like Wentworth’s – and of annual commemorations like Anzac Day.
“We proved last year that Anzac Day is a personal experience,” he said.
“We did run a dawn service from the front of the museum and it was great to see the candles down the driveways along Sandwych Street.”
But this year, the museum will be open on Anzac Day from 10am to 4pm, and Mr James looks forward to welcoming visitors.
“The museum provides that context to be able to talk about either their own family experience or their own experience with service,” he said.
“We encourage that conversation to be spoken about, which then has the flow-on in better mental health and dealing with some of the issues. It’s important that we bring light to that.”
The Wentworth Military Collection is open daily from 10am to 2pm on Sandwych Street, Wentworth.
