WHEN we gathered in Queen Elizabeth Park for the Anzac commemoration it was doubtful if anyone in today’s generation was aware of the history of what has been recognised as one of regional New South Wales’ most eye catching memorials.
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Some years ago the well respected Readers’ Digest published a feature on the nation’s war memorials with the authors describing ‘heroic and often neglected tributes that evoke another more innocent age’.
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He said the country war memorials evoked at the sametime ‘Australia’s pride and Australia’s sorrow’.
And this was no more so than in Lithgow where the memorial erected almost 100 years ago came in for special mention for its superbly carved marble diggers’.
Said the writer: ‘In Lithgow the ladies committee toiled for two years to pay for a monument. On October 13 1918 , though still 50 pounds short of their goal, the memorial was unveiled.
‘The town and union bands were there together with the Small Arms Factory guard and many wounded soldiers.
‘After the speeches a Mrs Callaghan who had lost three sons in the war drew aside the union Jack that had veiled a statues of two soldiers, one crouched wounded at the foot of the other who looked fearless, his rifle clenched in his hand.
‘The Marbles Diggers still stand weather beaten but intact in comfortable harmony with their surroundings in Queen Elizabeth Park.’
That was more than 30 years ago. The memorial today is far from ‘weatherbeaten’ and thanks to the sympathetic efforts of the RSL sub branch, Lithgow Council and local craftsmen the memorial precinct has never looked better and is not only a place of contemplation but a magnet for camera toting tourists.
Footnote: In the year immediately following the war the monument was flanked by two captured German artillery pieces. According to council records the guns were taken away and melted down during World War Two.
Today the Marble Diggers are guarded by a more fitting Australian field piece.