WWI veteran Phillip Gale’s memory lives on in family tales

TALES of a family patriarch who served in WWI still resonate around the table of this Brisbane family, more than 40 years after his death.

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TOOWONG man Chris Gale says tales of his strict, chain-smoking grandfather still dominate many a family gathering — despite the fact the WWI veteran passed away in 1970, a year before his grandson was born.

Phillip Gale was an 18-year-old labourer when war broke out in 1914.

He enlisted as a private in the 56th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Forces in 1916 and spent two years serving in the army, fighting in the trenches in France before contracting pneumonia and being transferred to England to recover.

When Phillip’s father fell ill during the final months of the war, he was discharged in September 1918 and arrived home in Sydney just in time to say a final goodbye.

Back in Australia, Phillip got on with life, meeting future wife May in Bateman’s Bay and going on to have 14 children.

Like the descendants of many who returned from the battlefields of WWI, the Gale family know very little of their patriarch’s involvement in the war or its effects. And Chris’ dad Ian never spoke much of his father.

“I think it was (Dad’s) mum who looked after the kids and (Phillip) worked,” Chris said.

“I think my grandad, gathering from family discussions, was very old-fashioned — the man worked and the women looked after the house. He was very strict, but not abusive.”