Susan Meyer shares the story of her great-uncle John ‘Jock’ William Henderson.

Jock enlisted on 19 October, 1914, when he was just 19 years old.

Jock and his younger brother Charlie were enthusiastic members of the 19th Prince of Wales Light Horse (Burrumbeet Troop).  A farmer from the Ballarat area, he was one of the first to enlist at Broadmeadows and became part of the 4th Light Horse Regiment – C Squadron.

After training at Mena, Egypt. He was aboard a ship looking after horses on the fateful morning of 25 April, and eventually landed at Gallipoli on 20 May. He served there with his unit (mostly around Ryries’ Post) until 6 October, at which time he contracted nephritis and was evacuated sick to Gibraltar, then on to London.

During his convalescence, he took on light duties at Monte Video Wemouth, Tidworth, Abbey Wood and Perham Downs.

He was then to serve on the Western Front in a variety of duties, with a variety of Units. Having served from the start of hostilities he was RTA under the 1914 rule,  in November 1918, arriving home on Christmas Day 1918.

He became a Soldier Settler at Waubra, north-west of Ballarat. Jock and his brother Charles were instrumental in forming the Ballarat RSSILA.

Susan says that, growing up, she had a vague notion that her own grandfather’s brothers had served in World War One, but didn’t know what they had done or where they had been. Susan has access to more than 50 letters and postcards that Jock sent home to his mother, and some more detailed, less frequent correspondence he sent to his father.

She says that, reading the letters, it is possible to get a real sense of the person Jock was, how proud he was of his Regiment, his kit and the horses.

The letters  tell of the sights and sounds of the war, the opportunity to visit Scotland to see his mother’s relatives and cousins he’d never met before, from the perspective of a boy off the farm. Jock was present for the first ANZAC Day parade in London, where he saw Churchill address Parliament.

Reading the letters, Jock’s eagerness for news of home, and his updates on the ‘Learmonth Boys’, the wounded, the casualties, and those who had been invalided back to Australia, is bought back to life.

Susan says the Anzac Centenary has inspired her to transcribe these letters to share more of Jock’s story, which is one worth telling.