A DRIVING force behind the long campaign for recognition of Lithgow’s World War Two fallen on a local memorial, Lorraine Taylor, has expressed pleasure that a breakthrough has finally been achieved.
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So frustrated was Mrs Taylor and her co campaigner Janice Marshall at the lack of any apparent progress that they had written to Lithgow Council seeking approval to go it alone with a memorial in Queen Elizabeth Park.
However at the eleventh hour the Lithgow RSL sub branch called a meeting where it was revealed that plans were in hand to commission appropriate plaques through sculptor Antony Symons — also responsible for the Marjorie Jackson statue in Cook Plaza — for a new feature at the warm memorial in the park.
The sub branch had correctly pointed out that names could not be added to the southern face of the existing World War One cenotaph as that was symbolically retained blank as tribute to the ‘unknown soldiers’.
At the most recent meeting of council Mrs Taylor withdrew her submission to council, indicating she and Mrs Marshall were pleased with the progress.
She said that after the years of delays by the time the letter to council had been written ‘I was at my wit’s end in seeking to have our World War Two heroes’ recognised.
Up to that time she said there had been ‘no positive response from council or the RSL’.
“We were prepared to raise the money ourselves,” she aid.
Mrs Taylor said that it was shameful that 70 years after the war the fallen had not been recognised in their own town.
“These were the real heroes — not today’s so called sporting heroes,’ she said.
It was only recently that the RSL sub branch had revealed its plans.
She thanked mayor Maree Statham and council’s Community and Culture manager Matthew Johnson for their efforts in ‘trying to bring this to fruition’.
Mrs Taylor said she and Mrs Marshall were hopeful of seeing the long awaited recognition become a reality for unveiling on Remembrance Day in November this year.
“Janice and I felt we were fighting a losing battle,” she said.
Council unanimously endorsed Mrs Taylor’s comments.
Last month the RSL sub branch secretary Michael Cuthbert announced that a sculptor and a stonemason had been engaged to create a monument.
He agreed that it was some years since the proposal was first brought forward but said the current sub branch executive was fully supportive of the monument.
Mr Cuthbert said the sub branch had always been ‘open’ to such a memorial.
But he said the concern had been where the names could be placed.
“It is common knowledge within the veteran community that the rear of a cenotaph should remain blank to remember those who have no known grave,” he said.
