Buried in Katoomba: The Story of Private John Parker, Veteran of The Great War
© John Low
[2 of 2]
On 24th June Parker, now considered recovered from his wounds, was transferred to the Overseas Training Brigade at the nearby Sandhill Camp, Longbridge Deverill to prepare for a return to France. While here he forfeited four days pay for going AWL. Was this a last fling with a new lady friend? Parker had written a new will on 22nd June, leaving all his worldly possessions to Mary Sinclair of Kelty, Fife, Scotland. Was she a nurse who had looked after him perhaps?
He proceeded to France once more on 12th September 1918 and joined the 4th Machine Gun Battalion for the remainder of the war. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated on 9th November and the Armistice was signed on 11th November. By 1st April 1919 Parker was back in England, granted six months leave to seek non military employment. Finding work in London as a watchmaker with the international jewellery firm, H. Williamson Ltd., he was offered a permanent position and in August applied to the AIF for a "Discharge in a Country other than Australia' in lieu of repatriation home. He stated that: "Being in the watch and jewellery trade, I find there is an exceptional opportunity to better myself both in gaining knowledge in my line of business, also monitary (sic) for the next couple of years. ... There is a scarcity of men on account of the Germans going out of the trade. I can benefit myself better here than in Australia for the next two years." Anticipating his application's approval, he took up the position with Williamson Ltd.
Then things got complicated. His application was refused and his leave cancelled on 8th September 1919. Failing to report on the required date, he became AWL from 20th September and on 9th December was declared an "illegal absentee". This situation continued well into 1920 and Parker found he was facing charges of desertion. He was discharged officially on 21st July 1920 "in consequence of being illegally absent".
Then, almost twelve months after being declared AWL, he finally reported to the AIF in September and argued his case: "I had applied for my discharge in UK", he said, "and I was led to believe that I should have no difficulty in getting it. I had made certain business arrangements which I could not break from when my discharge was not approved. I was therefore forced to go AWL. I had no intention of deserting from the AIF." His case was looked upon with a degree of favour for, while the discharge for illegal absence appears to have stood, his entitlement to appropriate war medals was restored.
While the facts of John Parker's life during the next decade are unknown, it is clear that he did return to Australia as he intended. Whether his stay in England benefited him career-wise on his return we will never know, though the onset of the depression in the late 1920s clearly rendered any such advantage null and void. When he arrived in Katoomba he was both sick and unemployed. Nevertheless, you can sense in the interest and curiosity he aroused that, as in other aspects of his life, there was a defiant independence about the manner in which he made his way in an unkind world.
With Parker's body in the local morgue, all efforts by the authorities in Katoomba to locate relatives failed. There were none to find. He had recorded no relatives at his enlistment and had informed the AIF Board of Inquiry in London that he had no relatives in Australia. His funeral was arranged by the Katoomba-Leura Branch of the R. S. & S. I. L. and he was buried in the Anglican section of Katoomba Cemetery on Tuesday, 20th September 1932 with representatives of the League in attendance and the Rector of St. Hilda's Anglican Church officiating.
"I am pleased", Rev. H. E. Taylor declared, "to see representatives of the Diggers here this morning to bear tribute to their departed comrade who was alone in the world. Occasions such as this", he continued, "take us back into the past and we are helped to realize something of the havoc created by war. The price was paid in the blood of thousands of the best of our manhood, but the picture of suffering humanity - men still suffering from their experiences at the front - is almost heart-breaking."8
Three days later the physical evidence of Private Parker's life - his horse, cart, harness, lamp and cooking utensils - was sold in the yard attached to Katoomba Courthouse.9 With this small final act of dispersal the community brought 'closure', to use a rather over-worked and 5modern expression, to this tragic episode and Parker slipped quietly from the business of the present.
The tale of John Parker is one of those fugitive stories that haunt the margins of history, hidden in the pages of old newspapers and files. Damaged by war and economic depression, forgotten by his country, he was a casualty of his time. When my daughter Marika and I located his grave last week it was overcast with the threat of rain and the sky over Mount Banks, just visible above the trees, was dark. We may well be the first people to visit him since 1932.
[end]