From France, with thanks
January 3rd 2010 21:01
The soldiers who liberated Villers-Bretonneux were Australians, and the story of their deed, along with details of the devastation of the village and the way of life of its people, was told via news services back home.
The story motivated the education community in Victoria to organise a state-wide appeal to help rebuild the Villers-Bretonneux school. An appeal was set up and every school child in Victoria donated one penny.
The money was delivered and the school was rebuilt. As a final touch, the words "N'oublions jamais l'Australie" — let us never forget Australia — were added to the school building, and those words remain there today.
They had vowed never to forget, and in the days after February 7, 2009 — Black Saturday — when bush fires in Victoria caused the worst natural disaster in Australia's history, the community of Villers-Bretonneux decided it was time to return the favour.
The organised a collection and raised about A$20,000 to be donated to the Australian bush fire relief appeal. But this was too quiet, too understated, too anonymous for a gesture which spanned two hemispheres and almost 100 years. Amidst the memories of an old war and a modern devastation, this was a chance to celebrate the generosity of human spirit.
On December 11, 2009, a senior official travelled from the French embassy in Canberra to the Victorian town of Strathewen, whose primary school was one of three schools lost in the bush fires, and formally donated the money to help rebuild it.
A 12-year-old Strathewen student with an apt name, Darcy French, summed up the effort: "If they can think all the way across the other side of the world, where it's not their worry and they don't have to care, it just astounds all of us."
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