By Tyler Wright
The Emerald RSL is on the hunt for information after the images of three servicemen were left in the organisation’s poppy collection.
RSL member Christine Weller was sorting through the collection in preparation for Remembrance Day when she came across the photos of the men attached to three poppies, with the person who donated them still unknown.
“I looked on the back and I felt sick because it had their names and where they served,” Ms Weller said.
“Beautiful black and white shots of men who went away to war.
“None of them, as far as we know, were killed over there; just the fact that someone had bothered to put them on the back of poppies, and then crocheted them into them and gave them to us.“
Leading Aircraftman P.J Threlfall, Trooper J.H Searle of the eighth Light Horse in the First Australian Imperial Force, and Private LJ Searle from the second Australian Imperial Force are all pictured on the poppies.
Local historians Jan Shaw and Chris A’Vard have discovered that the Searles, believed to be father and son, came from around the Brighton area and later Kangaroo Flat, according to Ms Weller.
L.J. (Leslie Joshua) Searle, who served in the Second World War, was born in Bentleigh in 1922.
He married Wilma Read in 1959, and lived in Kangaroo Flat for most of his life until his death in 2000.
J.H (Joshua Henry) Searle, the father of Leslie, is believed to have been born in 1895 in Moorabbin.
Joshua married Beryl Angus in 1921 and the pair lived in and around the Brighton area before moving to Kangaroo Flat.
Joshua died in 1974.
Details of the life of the third man – D.K. Threlfall – are still unknown.
Ms Weller is looking for whoever knitted the poppies.
“When we first started doing the [poppy displays] up here, we put out a call for poppies from all around Emerald to help,“ she said.
“We were trying to get 5,000 poppies to decorate Anzac Place, and we ended up with maybe 35,000.
“They came from all over Australia – so whether it was one from that time or not, I don’t know.“
Anyone with information on who knitted the poppies, or the men pictured, is able to contact Ms Weller via email at christine@cwcreative.com.au
