World War I

As far as I know Gargie did not fight in World War I - I am interested in why and what his experience was? He would have been 26 years old when the war started in 1914 and so there would have been a lot of pressure to go. He did work on the docks and so may have been in an exempt occupation? He also had bad teeth and that would have ruled him out in the early part of the war, although these restrictions were eased considerably as they needed more and more men to send off to the "war to end all wars". I am currently doing some research into topic and I am finding some fascinating accounts from those who did join up explaining what their reasons were. I am looking forward to adding this to Gargie's story.

Writers block

I haven't done much writing about Gargie lately but I have been doing some interesting research. It seems Gargie was working on the docks at Warrnambool when the La Bella hit a reef in Lady Bay and sank with 7 lives lost in 1905. There was even someone of the same name amongst the crew of the lifeboat who, helped save 5 of the sailors - but I don't know if that was my Gargie or someone with the same name (Thomas Mitchell). That will keep me busy for while

I am now one of the 120,000 people worldwide who has set up a blog today. Add this to yesterday's 120,000 new blogs and the mind boggling number of blogs that have been set up already this year alone it is highly and that is a lot of blogs. Clearly this means that unless I force my kids to read this blog then it is highly likely that I will be the only person reading it.

I might as well try to make it interesting to write then.

The Gargie being reclaimed in the title refers to my Great Grandfather who died a couple of weeks before I was born. Gargie was born in 1887 and died in 1960. I did not even know of his existence until I started researching the family history. I have tracked down his unmarked grave in the pauper section of the Ballarat cemetery and have started looking into his life, which was an interesting and eventful one.

It is difficult to comprehend, from a comfortable 21st century life, how different life could be during the period of his life. I plan to post some information to this blog about life during Gargie's time. I hope you find it interesting.