An Anzac's Story

Description

Many books have been written by officers, historians and military experts on the part the Anzacs played in the Dardanelles campaign during the First World War. There are very few by the ordinary soldier. Roy Kyle started writing this memoir at the age of 89 and almost completed it before he died. A typical Anzac, fiercely patriotic, he enlisted in the A.I.F. in 1915, several months under-age. He spent his eighteenth birthday in the terrible trenches of Gallipoli and then went on to serve on the Western Front. An Anzac's Story is an honest, poignant account of a young man's experience of war. It is much more than this, though, for Roy Kyle's story begins with his colourful, classic Australian childhood in country New South Wales and Victoria in the early years of last century. Bryce Courtenay, who helped get Roy Kyle's memoirs published, has provided a moving introduction to his life and times. Stay in touch with all of Bryce's news on Facebook: facebook.com/BryceCourtenay

Author description

Albert Roy Kyle (or Roy, as most people knew him) was born at Corowa, NSW in 1897, the third of four children. He was working as a bank clerk in Terang when, at the age of 17 and with his parents' reluctant approval, he enlisted in the A.LF. He served first at Gallipoli and later in France and Belgium. After the war he rejoined the bank and in 1920 he married Jessie Johanssen, with whom he had two children. After Roy retired in 1960, he and Jessie moved to Geelong in Victoria, where they remained for the rest of their lives.