Rededicating Harry and Allan Johns’ trees (l-r) were niece Margaret Waddingham (86), nephew Bob Dixon (83) and Annie Hazard, grand-niece Janine Dixon and AysiahOK Uren (10).
Camera IconRededicating Harry and Allan Johns’ trees (l-r) were niece Margaret Waddingham (86), nephew Bob Dixon (83) and Annie Hazard, grand-niece Janine Dixon and AysiahOK Uren (10). Credit: Supplied/Supplied

Mosman Park families attend rededication of Norfolk pines for WWI servicemen

Jon BassettWestern Suburbs Weekly

YOUNG Norfolk pines have been rededicated to replace three that have died since being planted by Mosman Park families to remember relatives who died during WWI.

“While Australian history says that age shall no weary the dead of our wars, unfortunately what we have found is Norfolk pines last only about 80 years,” Mosman Park Mayor Ron Norris said at the rededication ceremony last Thursday.

Earlier this year, the Town searched for relatives of three Mosman Park and Cottesloe servicemen killed in WWI who are commemorated with the pines that needed replacing at the council’s Memorial Park on Palmerston Street.

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The trees for brothers Harry and Allan John were rededicated by their nephew Bob Dixon (86), of Booragoon, and grand-niece Janine Dixon, of Dunsborough.

Mr Dixon has visited the western front in Belgium where his uncle, who he said until then he only knew as “the one who died in the war” fell.

“We went to a field, a field that could have been any of those where he died, and the guide picked up a handful of dirt and said ‘feel the weight of that’, and it could have been shrapnel, just the sort of shrapnel that could have killed my uncle,” Mr Dixon said.

Ballajura resident Shelley McKibbin was at the Mosman Park ceremony for a new tree remembering her great-grandfather William Stevens-Press.

“He died on the Western Front aged 42, and I’m going there next month, because both he and my grandfather served together in 16th Battalion,” Ms McKibbin said.