For Love of Country launched 23 March 2016
There was a wonderful launch of For Love of Country at Canberra Boys Grammar School on Wednesday, 23 March.
About 130 people – family, neighbours friends – heard Rear Admiral Ken Doolan AO, National President of the Returned and Services League, speak highly of the book and of the three warrior Eddison sons who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Second World War. Each of the boys went to Canberra Grammar between 1929 and 1936 ... and in fact Eddison House is named after them.
I'm extremely grateful to the School for its generosity in hosting this event.
Guest of honour at the launch was their last surviving sister, Pamela Yonge, now 94, who briefly welcomed guests to the launch as proceedings got under way.
For Love of Country owes its being almost entirely to Pam Yonge.
It is exactly five years ago – in March 2011 – that I went to see her and her late husband, Brigadier Paul Yonge, to propose writing her family's story. Pam not only gave her consent, but enthusiastically offered me access to the substantial family archive of letters, diaries, photographs and memorabilia. In this she was supported by her extended family, who also made their previous papers available.
Truly, I've never written a book with such a wealth of original primarcy source material.
Pam Yonge
In his remarks, Admiral Doolan made the point that the book tells the story of this family against the background of the wider story of Australia and of world history as the nation and its people had only twenty years respite after the First World War, before being plunged into the Second World War of the twentieth century.
The experience of the Eddison family reflected in many ways that of the generations at large between the wars ... and this certainly was my intention.
It was most gratifying for the author to hear Admiral Doolan to pick up on the significance of a gas mask in the overall structure of the book.
For Love of Country begins with Captain Walter Eddison being caught in a gas attack in France in 1918. It is a recurring image throughout the story: and as a military man, Ken Doolan understood immediately the importance of the fact that Walter did not rip off the hateful mask, even as he was choking on a whiff of gas.
Gas masks 1918
It was a deliberate act of survival ... and the importance of that metaphor becomes clear as the family story unfolds.
The day was not only a social and literary success ... it was a commercial one as well.
The bookseller, Paperchain, sold all but one of the 75 books brought to the occasion. Seventy-four books to be signed. People ask if you get writer's cramp with all that scribbling – but no-one ever does at their own book-signing.
Actually For Love of Country went into reprint before it even hit the bookshops. The retailers must have been ordering it in substantial quantities, for even I had to wait for the copies I placed on order several weeks before.
Which is good news for Anthony Hill the author – but not so hot for Anthony Hill the bookseller and marketeer.
Photo credits:
Rear Admiral Doolan and Anthony, photo by Gillian Hill; Pam Yonge by Anthony Hill; Gas masks 1918 courtesy David Daws; Anthony book signing, Gillian Hill.
