Local historian NICHOLE OVERALL previews the arrival of Legacy’s centenary torch relay and remembers Queanbeyan’s long contribution to the cause.

“LOOK after the missus and kids,” were a dying Aussie Digger’s last words to his mate on the World War I battlefields of the Western Front. 

Having grown “out of the ashes” of the Great War, a Torch Relay to mark the 100th anniversary of Legacy, the organisation supporting veterans and their families, began in Pozieres, France, on April 23 this year.

On August 9, the symbolic torch – “the undying flame of service and sacrifice handed to us by our comrades in war”, adopted as the official emblem in 1926 – is set to arrive in Queanbeyan. 

Over a 10-kilometre route through the city, it will be borne aloft by a host of residents from students to former mayor, Tim Overall.

It’s part of a six-month, 50,000-odd kilometre journey that took in the Menin Gate – the memorial to the missing in Belgian Flanders – and London, before arriving in WA. Travelling through every state and territory, visiting each of the 44 Australian Legacy Clubs, the relay returns to Canberra on August 28.

The torch’s flame will ultimately be rejoined with the Eternal Flame at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance on October 13. 

I was delighted, given our long-time family connections with Legacy, to also be selected as a torch bearer for this once-in-a-lifetime event. With the untimely passing of Maj-Gen, Senator Jim Molan in January this year, it was with some sadness that I accepted the honour to act as the Queanbeyan-Eden-Monaro Legacy Centenary Torch Relay Ambassador. 

Other locals to hold the torch high will include former and serving Defence members, QPRC Councillor Mareeta Grundy, representatives of Cooma-Bombala Legacy and the first female president of Queanbeyan Legacy, Suzanne McInnes.

The relay will travel past various Queanbeyan schools with wreath-layings at both the Lowe Street Cenotaph and the Memorial Rose Garden (Campbell St) – which I also had the great pleasure to open for the 2015 Anzac and Red Cross Centenaries. The unveiling of a commemorative plaque at the Legacy Village will conclude proceedings. 

For Queanbeyan, September 13 marks 90 years since a group of local ex-servicemen, led by the headmaster of Queanbeyan High School, Francis Gallagher, and grazier and Military Cross recipient J Carragh Gorman, of “Googong”, enthusiastically agreed to form a Legacy Club.

It was a decade after the formation of what started as the Remembrance Club of Hobart in 1923, the commitment of Maj-Gen Sir John Gellibrand four years on from the end of a conflict in which more than 60,000 Australians were killed and in excess of 150,000 returned home forever wounded.

Stanley Savige, an officer of the 24th Battalion, furthered the movement in Melbourne – the inaugural meeting in Anzac House – and within three years, the Legacy Club of NSW was operational. 

Canberra’s club was inaugurated on Anzac Day, 1928 (more recently incorporating Yass and Boorowa).

For Queanbeyan’s first 38 Legatees, theirs similarly was a promise to “help veterans’ families carry on with their lives after the loss or injury of their loved one”.

It would be noted in the “History of the Legacy Club of Sydney” that “Legacy was further advanced in NSW… by the formation of a club at Queanbeyan”.

Unsurprisingly, the demand for local support was considerable and the Queanbeyan branch extended its operations across Monaro in 1948. Five years on, the Cooma-Bombala Legacy came into being. In 1997, with the addition of Far South Coast Legacy, they individually came under the banner of the Legacy Club of Queanbeyan-Eden-Monaro.

Always progressive, Queanbeyan also constructed its Legacy Village, providing homes for some of their most high-need wards, the first stage opened in 1974 by NSW Governor Sir Roden Cutler VC.

From the local Legacy Club Balls in St Gregory’s Hall back in the day – regularly “the social event of the year” – more recently you’ve hopefully purchased a badge, a pen or even a teddy bear (I’ll have my World War I Digger and Army Nurse with me on the day) in support of Legacy Week, originally the War Orphans Appeal started on the outbreak of World War II. 

Fundraising remains a critical element of Legacy’s ongoing efforts and the torch relay also offers the chance to make a contribution.

After 100 years, the underlying principle of this unique organisation remains strong, evident in this historic and remarkable journey: “The spirit of Legacy is service and sacrifice”.

“Fear not that you have died for naught;

The torch you threw to us we caught!

And now our hands will hold it high,

Its glorious light shall never die.

We’ll not break faith with you who lie

On many a field”.

Lest we forget.

The Queanbeyan leg of the torch relay begins at the Queanbeyan West Public School, 10am, August 9, progressing to the Queanbeyan Legacy Village, on Bungendore Road, at about 2.30pm, legacy.com.au/centenary/