The incredible coincidence of the Bible that found its way home exactly 100 years later

THIS story is almost beyond belief. After being found in a rubbish dump, this book is at the centre of a remarkable coincidence.

SOMETIMES the magnitude of a coincidence is so inexplicable, it’s as if time itself is talking to you.

Melbourne man Hugh Batters, 57, doesn’t read news.com.au every morning, but on Tuesday last week (November 3) he did. It was just after 8am and truth be told, he wasn’t even awake properly.

“I’m not very good in the mornings, I’m always a little fuzzy,” Hugh confesses.

The headline that grabbed his attention, The incredible things found at the tip, was an article about strange and interesting things found on the rubbish dump in Canberra.

“I was reading a story, I suppose as a semi-interested third party,” Hugh says. That was until he got to part where Sandie Parkes, co-owner of the Canberra salvaging business The Green Shed, is photographed holding a tiny antique Bible with handwritten inscriptions in the front and back.

The neat, faded ink messages declare the Bible was given by a mother named M Berryman “With Love …” to her son on his departure for war on November 11, 1915.

The Green Shed owner Sandie Parkes pictured with the Bible found at the Canberra tip. Picture: Richard Tuffin.

The back of the Bible where the address was written. Picture: Richard Tuffin.

At the back M Berryman wrote her address — a house called “Lorna Doon” on High Street in Ballarat, Victoria.

When Hugh saw the photo of Sandie and read the name of the house where his grandfather grew up, he “knew immediately that it was Harold’s Bible.”

“It was quite surreal,” Hugh says.

Hugh has spent years researching the history of his grandfather, Major Harold John Thomas Berryman. This is another piece of that fascinating and complex puzzle.

Beverly Batters, 91, is Hugh’s mother and Harold’s daughter.

“I was thrilled when Hugh phoned me to tell me that Daddy’s Bible had been found,” Beverly says.

Hugh describes Major Berryman, who was born in 1885 and died in 1951, as “a visionary.”

The Major, as he became known, was told he was unable to join the Australian war effort because he was working in a so-called “protected industry” as an engineer in the Ballarat mines. Not willing to take no for an answer, he paid his own way on a boat from Melbourne to London in 1915 where he joined the Royal Naval Air Service as a test pilot, flying — and occasionally crashing — planes to assist the Allied war effort.

Hugh explains this “would have been a dangerous job, considering some of these aircraft were just fabric held together with bits of wire.

“The aircraft he lists as flown in his service records for World War I are astonishing,” Hugh says.

The Major’s exploits did not stop there. He met Winston Churchill, travelled the world, saved a man from drowning and amassed numerous medals including: a bronze medal from the Royal Lifesaving Society, the Air Force Cross, the Italian Croce de Guerre and the Coronation medal in 1953.

Harold Berryman in 1916 as a newly commissioned sublieutenant. The plane is believed to be a BE2c.

“With his engineering knowledge he would reconfigure and reconstruct things to make them work better,” Hugh says.

This includes helping adapt planes so that they could that could take off and land on the floating decks anchored in the ocean.

These were the forerunners to aircraft carriers, Hugh says, and much later they played a crucial role in the Pacific War.

Major Berryman’s adventures attracted attention from the press and he was frequently mentioned in both Australian and New Zealand newspapers.

“I suppose he was seen as the dashing officer of the Royal Navy Air Service,” Hugh says.

While some may have thought Major Berryman looked dapper in his military uniform, Beverley has other ideas.

“I don’t think my father ever looked smart. He had no idea of putting his clothes together,” she says with a laugh.

However, she adds that he was a “marvellous” conversationalist, a generous host and “he was fun.”

This sense of levity is apparent in a note scrawled on the back of a black and white photo in which the Major is pictured, circa 1916, leaning on the propeller of a plane as newly commissioned sublieutenant.

Harold Berryman as a newly commissioned sublieutenant circa 1916.

“Don’t I look a Guy [fool],” he scrawled on the reverse side; he claimed the photo was “taken unknown to me.”

Beverly explains that while her father was not religious himself, it’s unsurprising her grandmother, Mary Ann, gave the Bible to Harold.

“She was a religious lady and so were [all] my Ballarat relatives. They were all Methodists,” Beverly says.

According to a 1919 article in the Auckland Star newspaper, the Major was wounded several times during the war. Beverly also recalls he had no feeling in his lower lip because Harold had been frostbitten while flying high over France.

“There was no protection in the aircraft in those days,” she says.

Neither Hugh or Beverly is certain how Harold’s Bible ended up on the tip in Canberra, although Beverly did have some cousins living in the nation’s capital at one stage.

Today Sandie has flown from Canberra to Melbourne in order to return the Bible to the Batters (nee Berryman) family.

Sandie Parkes flew at her own expense from Canberra to Melbourne to deliver the Bible back to its rightful owners 100 years to the day after it left with Harold Berryman for war. Picture: Joe Castro.

“Giving this little Bible back to the daughter of Harold, exactly 100 years to the day that his mother handed it to him as he left for the war in Europe, is a wonderful feeling,” Sandie says.

The auspicious date does not escape Beverly. As well as the Bible’s 100-year anniversary, she notes it’s also Armistice Day and her mother’s birthday.

“That’s exciting, isn’t it?!” Beverly says with an unmistakeable sparkle in her eyes.

“The timing is absolutely perfect,” Hugh says, adding that it is important to remember, “the remarkable sacrifice those young men made in both wars to allow us to stay free.

“The world would be a very different place if it weren’t for boys like those, who made the world what it is today and Australia what it is today,” he says.

Beverly Batters wonders at how her ‘Daddy’s’ Bible found its way home exactly 100 years after he took it to war. Picture: Sandie Parkes.

An undated photo of the Ballarat house “Lorna Doon”. Harold rides on the back of the tricycle.

*Historical note: It has come to my attention Ernest William Stewart Berryman could possibly be the Bible owner. He was a cousin of Harold’s and was also from Ballarat. Ernest left for war on November 12, 1915 and confusingly, his mother was also named Mary. However his family lived on Gregory Street, not High Street. This leads me to believe Harold, who lived at Lorna Doon, was the likely owner.

I would like to thank the many online sleuths who worked hard to try and figure out this historical mystery including: Tayla, Dawn, Anne, Elizabeth and especially Claire.

Ginger Gorman is an award-winning print and radio journalist, and a 2006 World Press Institute Fellow. Follow her on twitter: @GingerGorman