Memory of father is enduring

As he was an Anzac, the day is a continuing reminder of her father's leadership when he started as a Private in the 11th Battalion AIF and left from Blackboy Hill to sail to Gallipoli.

Before the war, Lieutenant Walter Henry Palmer, born in 1896, lived on his father's vineyard in Caversham and signed up to represent his country.

Mrs Netherway said her father was a clever, resilient man who had a strong constitution.

She said her father's problem-solving abilities and leadership were recognised on the front and, as such, he soon rose to the level of Acting Corporal and led the other troops around him until he contracted meningitis in 1916 and had to be sent back to Perth to recover.

He signed up again and served a second time in Europe, leaving again from Blackboy Hill camp.

On leaving the Western Front when the war ended, he kept a record of the dinner invitation and farewell meal on May 9, 1919 in Mont-Sur-Machienne, where the dishes offered were soup, salmon mayonnaise, ham or beef, mashed potatoes, salad, and pastry dessert with wine or beer.

"He made many friends along the way," Mrs Netherway said.

She has six books of her father's diaries from the war, in which he writes well with a witty and erudite air and tone.

He speaks of Paris and Cairo and his impressions of the cities and people around him, and lists all the ships he passes in the harbours on the way to the war.

After the war he moved to Piesse Brook, had nine children and ran an orchard.

Sadly, he died in 1937 after cutting his arm on a sickle in the field and contracting an infection.