Lithgow High School’s Miranda Swift shared her experiences from the battlefields of the Western Front with students at a special Remembrance Day assembly on Tuesday, November 13.
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Inspired by her family connection the Year 11 student applied to become part of the Premier’s Anzac Scholarship Tour, which took place earlier this year.
“I knew I had a great great grandfather who served in World War I so I thought it was a good opportunity to write about his story,” she said.
She submitted drawings and an essay on her great great grandfather, Cecil Dukes, who served in Gallipoli and was selected for the trip.
“I have a passion for history so I was really looking forward to hopefully going overseas to the battlefields,” Miranda said.
The tour took in the Western Front and some of the museums in London. As part of their tour, the students from around NSW were given an essay task.
It was this young man’s story which remained with her and which she took the opportunity to share at the assembly. Private Roy Crookshanks was no older than some of Lithgow High School’s students when he enlisted.
“I focused on him because it’s easier for kids to connect with another kid,” Miranda said.
“He enlisted before he was 18 – he was a boy soldier – he was from Sydney. He went over [to the Western Front] and he was killed within the first 24 hours of combat at the Battle of Fromelles.
“It was pretty confronting that he had to lie about his age, and then he was murdered.”
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Private Crookshanks’ body was never formally identified and he it was believed he was laid to rest alongside other allied soliders in a mass burial.
“They think he's in there, otherwise his body is still missing,” Miranda said.
Miranda said she believed there were still valuable lessons to be learned from WWI, despite the fact it was followed by another world war.
“It should never happen again,” she said.
Miranda hopes to go on to study civil engineering, including taking part in a UNSW camp in January to experience life as an engineering student.
She will continue to study history for the HSC in 2019 and it remains a passion for the Lithgow High School student.
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