Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Keilor's Anzac memory by Susan Jennison OAM and Dorothy Minkoff.

Keilor's Anzac memory by Susan Jennison OAM and Dorothy Minkoff. Paperback book published by Keilor Historical Society 2015, 234 pages with monotone photographs, a few colour photographs, some colour illustrations and one black and white map.


Here we are a week and a bit after Anzac day and i'm writing about the Anzacs of Keilor*. Possibly now is not the time to be doing this as, as blunt as this may seem, the Anzac day** commemorations are now over and people's minds are now focused on other more pressing matters... like the upcoming Australian and US elections and the big question about Donald Trumps hair... and less on purchasing a book about Keilor's Anzac memory. Still, this is the book that caught my attention whilst I was considering which book of interest to write about, mainly because it's such a specific sub subject within a much larger and popular subject. ...Not that Keilor isn't popular, i'm sure anyone who is a fan of Keilor will agree that any book on the Anzacs is more likely to out sell a book about Keilor (…sorry to be so blunt).

Not since I stumbled upon a book about Bendigo's Rats of Tobruk have I encountered such a specific military history tying a very specific place in Australia to somewhere half a world away. I like the idea, as it brings a very local angle to what is normally a rather broad base subject/interest, in this case Australia vs Keilor. There is the question as to who is going to find this book of interest. Keilor residents? Descendants of Keilor residents? I've got a feeling that anyone that might be interested might take a while before they go looking for this book, maybe even nearly a year from now, maybe around Anzac day. It's here... waiting.


* A suburb of Melbourne, Victoria.

** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anzac_Day

No comments:

Post a Comment