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Born on 15 July 1882 in the family home at 9 Damside in Newton on Ayr, Scotland.

He was the 2nd son and the 4th of "10" children born to John and Elizabeth Duncan (nee Stewart).

1898 he had left Ayr for the booming port of Liverpool, where he worked as a labourer for a “Mr Stewart”.

1899 when Andy attested for the South Lancashire Militia, his address was recorded as “Regin Street” Liverpool. Old maps of Liverpool (www.liverpoolhistoryprojects.co.uk) don’t seem to include a Regin Street, but there is a Regent Street not far from the docks.

BOER WAR

Andy joined the British Army in September 1899 as talk of war between Britain and the Boers reached fever pitch.

Andy lied about his age to enlist, and his attestation papers record his age as 18 years 1 month when really he was only 17. He was described as 5' 4¾" tall, with fresh complexion, blue eyes, brown hair.

Andy served in the South Lancashire Regiment from 26/9/1899 to 2/12/1911.

He volunteered first for the South Lancashire Militia and soon transferred to the 1st Battalion, nicknamed the “Fighting Fortieth”. His military records indicate that he served in the 1st Battalion in South Africa and later in India.

Andy was not in the first South Lancashire contingent to sail for South Africa. On 30/11/1899 Andy would have joined the wildly enthusiastic crowds farewelling the South Lancashires as they marched out of the barracks. Andy was probably disappointed not to be going himself. Men were desperate not to miss out on an adventure that many thought would be over by Christmas.

Private Duncan finally departed for South Africa in early June 1900.
It is likely that he sailed from Southampton on 8/6/1900 on board the Tagus. 

John Downham’s book, Red Roses on the Veldt: Lancashire Regiments in the Boer War, 1899-1902 helps to expand upon the terse entries in Andy’s service record.

The voyage to South Africa would have been new and exciting for young Andy. Dolphins leapt and raced alongside the ship as it sailed south, the waters alight with phosphorescence at night.

On board, the daily routine included cleaning the ship, physical drills and rifle practice. Men passed their off-duty hours playing cards or holding impromptu smoking concerts, at which each man was expected to sing or recite verse. Perhaps Andy recited the poems of Robbie Burns, which he was known for in later years.

The ship reached Table Bay on 29/6/1900.
It was a period of relative quiet in South Africa: large, formal military operations were all but over, the capitals of the two Boer republics were under British control, and some British observers were predicting the end of the war. But the Boer guerilla campaign was just beginning.

Andy travelled north from Cape Town to join the regiment in the southern Transvaal, where they were tasked with securing rail and telegraph lines between Standerton and Volksrust. Their duties included digging trenches to protect the camps, manning isolated outposts along the railways, and patrolling the lines. They kept a close eye on Boer farms in the area and conducted searches for arms. When ammunition or weapons were found, orders were to confiscate farm stock and burn the farm. The Boer commandos were never far away; the soldiers had to remain vigilant and ready to fend off raids on the camp.

On 4/9/1900 the battalion marched south-east as part of the 11th (Lancashire) Brigade. It was a 90-mile march through Wakkerstroom to Utrecht and on to Vryheid. Andy would likely have escorted guns and equipment carriages pulled by slow-moving oxen.

The march was dusty and dirty. Men’s feet blistered and bled. The weight of their rifles bruised their shoulders. Tents or shelters were rare and there was little opportunity to wash off the accumulated mud, blood and sweat. At the end of each day Andy would have slept in the dirt, his greatcoat wrapped around him as protection against the bitterly cold night.

The 1st Battalion took up garrison duty at De Jager’s Drift on the Buffalo River on 10 November. Here Andy spent an uneventful two months, though not far away at Vryheid the Boers mounted a serious attack that killed 11 men. The South Lancashires left De Jager’s Drift in January 1901 to relieve the Vryheid garrison. The 3 day march saw several brushes with the enemy but no serious fighting.

On 14/1/1901 the Battalion reached Vryheid and entered the garrison on Lancaster Hill, a high rocky plateau on the northern outskirts of the town. Andy would spend the rest of his time in South Africa stationed here. Once defences were strengthened and the threat of attack had died down, Andy would have settled into a routine of parades and drills, work parties and outpost or sentry duty.

Despite Vryheid being relatively peaceful throughout 1901, the South African weather and the British army staple diet of ration biscuit and bully beef continued to take a toll on the regiment. Of the thirty-five deaths in the South Lancashires while Andy was stationed at Lancaster Hill, twenty-one of them were from illness or disease. Another two deaths were caused directly by the elements: one due to sunstroke and one due to a lightning strike (which also injured eight others).

Andy was posted back to England 29/1/1902, before the final major battles of February – April. He had passed his initiation into military life and managed to avoid death, injury and disease. He was awarded the standard service medals for his time in South Africa: the Queen’s South Africa Medal with clasps for service in Cape Colony, Orange Free State and Transvaal, and the King’s South Africa Medal with two clasps for service in South Africa in 1901 and 1902.

1902 Andy spent serving in the United Kingdom, where he was promoted to Lance Corporal and then Corporal. He achieved his 3rd class certificate of education (required for promotion to Corporal) in November 1902.

On 22/12/1902 Andy was part of a draft posted to India, where the 1st Battalion was on garrison duty.

Andy’s service record in The British National Archives (WO97 series) gives only the briefest outline of his time in India. Hart’s Annual Army List confirms the regiment’s movements, while details of soldiers’ daily routine in the heat and dust can be found in Richard Holmes’ book, Sahib: the British soldier in India 1750-1914.

The trip to India by steamer took about 6 weeks. Andy arrived in Calcutta [Kolkata] at the beginning of February 1902.

Andy joined the 1st Battalion at Jubbulpore [Jabalpur] in Bengal. He had arrived at the coolest time of the year and the weather into March would have been quite pleasant; cold, foggy mornings giving way to warm afternoons. Once summer arrived, however, temperatures shot north of 40 degrees, and work in the heat of the day became impossible. In Sahib one soldier describes the weather in May as “hot as human nature can well support”.  The monsoon season brought some relief, but temperatures remained around 30 degrees until winter arrived in November.

Andy continued his education and worked towards attaining his sergeant’s stripes. He studied writing and dictation, mathematics including proportions, interest, fractions and averages, and all forms of regimental accounting.  He also studied the Hindi language, Andy almost certainly learned enough colloquial language to speak pidgin Anglo-Indian with battalion servants and locals.

Andy passed his class for rank of Sergeant on 21/9/1903, and was awarded his second-class certificate of education on 23/3/1904.

In May 1906 Andy was stationed further east in Mhow, on transport duties.

In 1907 the battalion was posted to Ranikhet Cantonment in northeast India. The move between garrisons probably consisted of a long, slow train journey of several days bookended by formal marches. The heat meant that the battalion would move at night and camp during the day.  Sahib describes how the rest camps were alive with activity and noise:

The constant jabbering of the natives, and the roaring of the camels, together with elephants and buffaloes, reminds one of the striking contrast between India and peaceful England … The women of Bengal beat all I ever saw, for they will fight, and keep up such a chatter that they may be heard above the din of the Camp.

Ranikhet was a forested hill station in sight of the western Himalayas. Andy would have welcomed the cool summers after the heat of Bengal and the central plains, but the heavy snow and near-zero temperatures in December would have required some adjustment.

Andy was promoted to Sergeant on 28/1/1907. He then sought and was granted permission to extend his service to complete 12 years with the colours.

In 1909 Andy was posted to England for 6 months before rejoining the battalion. In 1910 he completed a musketry course at Changla Gali.

On 2/12/1911, having completed 12 years with the regiment,
Andy left the British Army.

Mr. A. Duncan sailed on the SS Janus from Calcutta to Australia in December 1911

By June 1911 he was in Broken Hill, New South Wales. He chose an isolated outback town over the bustle of Sydney.

Andy quickly became involved in the life of the district. The 15/6/1912 edition of the Barrier Miner newspaper reported Mr. Duncan’s recital of Robert Burns’ “Tam o’ Shanter” at the Caledonian Society’s monthly meeting.

In Broken Hill, Andy renewed his involvement in military matters.

He attested for volunteer service in the South Australian Militia, and on 4/11/1912 he was promoted to provisional  2nd Lieutenant of the 81st Infantry (Wakefield Battalion).

March 1913 Lieutenant Duncan spent Easter at the Gawler infantry camp in South Australia, commanding unit E of the battalion during their annual course of continuous training. Andy would have been surprised to find an old South Lancashire Regiment colleague, George Maginis, appointed staff sergeant-major for the training. Andy and Maginis had been with the regiment in South Africa, and would have crossed paths again in Warrington.

Almost immediately after returning from Gawler, Andy resigned his Lieutenant position in the Battalion. It is unclear why.

Around this time Andy met his future wife, Elizabeth Stewart (no relationship to his mothers' side).

4/4/1914 Andy, 31, and Jane, 25, were married at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Broken Hill.
They bought a house in Lane Street but the coming war meant that neither of them would stay in Broken Hill much longer.

Four months after Andy Duncan and Jane Stewart married, Britain declared war with Germany.

Friday 21/8/1914 the first men were farewelled from Broken Hill.

Broken Hill men were assigned to the 10th Battalion, which together with the 9th, 11th and 12th Battalions formed the 3rd Brigade. Andy Duncan, with his previous military experience, was assigned the rank of Sergeant.

The 10th Battalion reached its full strength by the end of August 1914.
All of September and the first half of October 1914 was spent training at Morphettville

Next of kin in service:
Four brothers who enlisted to fight for King and Country in the First World War.
John, Andrew and Anthony liee about their ages to enlist.

John Duncan
joined the British Army Reserve in January 1916
transferred to the 5th Army Reserve Scottish Rifles
and later the Royal Army Veterinary Corps.

Andrew Stewart Duncan
Emigrated to Australia in 1912
Enlisted in the 10th Infantry Battalion, AIF in August 1914.

Anthony Duncan
Emigrated to Canada in 1910.
He attested for the 74th Battalion, Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force in July 1915.

 After the war one brother emigrated to Canada, another to South Africa,
and the third (Andy) to Australia.

The brothers never met again, but kept in regular contact through letters. 

Hugh Duncan (the baby brother)
Joined the 1/5th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers.
On 7/6/1915 he landed at Cape Helles on the Gallipoli peninsula,
where he was critically wounded.
Hugh died on 23/6/1915 of wounds received in action.
He was buried at Lancashire Landing cemetery not far from Cape Helles.

“Andy” Duncan was a soldier for a good part of his adult life. The military service that defined him to his wife and family was his enlistment as an original Anzac, but by 1914 Andy already had 12 years’ British Army experience in England, South Africa and India and a year in the South Australian Militia.

Described on enlisting in WWI as 32 years 10 months old; married; 5' 7" tall; 124 lbs;
fair complexion; grey eyes; brown hair; Presbyterian

24/8/1914     Enlisted at Morphettville, South Australia

20/10/1914   Embarked Outer Harbour, Port Adelaide on board HMAT Ascanius A11
                    as a Sergeant, with G Company, 10th Infantry Battalion

The Ascanius made a brief stop at Albany, Western Australia, then sailed for Egypt via Colombo.

In the early morning of 9/11/1914 Andy may have witnessed the HMAS Sydney steam west at full speed. He likely watched several hours later when the Melbourne and the Ibuka raced away with battle flags raised. The men knew that something was doing. Then at 11:15am news was received from the Sydney that the German cruiser Emden was “beached and done for”.

6/12/1914 the 10th Battalion disembarked at Alexandria and entrained for Cairo, Egypt.

The men arrived in Cairo around midnight and were given a mug of cocoa, a bread roll and cheese. Then they boarded trams for Mena camp.

For the next three months the Battalion underwent vigorous training at Mena camp. A typical day started with Reveille at 6am then breakfast at 7am. After breakfast the men marched for about four miles across the desert to the drill ground. There they would rest for ten minutes before drilling until 12 noon.

At the beginning of January 1915 the Battalion structure changed from 8 companies to 4.
Andy’s G Company was disbanded and he was now in D Company.
About this time the ‘Australian Expeditionary Force’ was renamed the ‘Australian Imperial Force’.

By February night drills had lengthened.
Soldier Archie Barwick wrote of practising at night
“taking up positions, digging trenches, attacking, scouting, silent marches, bayonet attacks, rapid movements”.

On 2/3/1915 Andy left with the Battalion on the S.S. Ionian for the island of Lemnos.
Here they would make their final preparations for a landing at the Dardanelles.

In the early hours of 25 April 1915, Andy Duncan was on board the destroy Scourge – anchored about 5 miles from the Gallipoli shore. 

Andy’s Battalion was part of the covering force for the Anzac landing and the first ashore.

From the 10th Battalion War Diaries:

Absolute silence was maintained by all in our boats & directly the boats were cast off by the steamers we quickly rowed towards the shore. Dawn was just breaking 4.15am  & no sound was heard except the splash of the oars.

We thought that our landing was to be effected quite unopposed, but when our boats were within about 30 yd of the beach a rifle was fired from the hill in front of us above the beach, right in front of where we were heading for. Almost immediately heavy rifle & machine gun fire was opened upon us. We had to row for another 15 yards or so before we reached water shallow enough to get out of boats. This was about 4.15 AM – we got out of boats into about 3 ft of water & landed on a stony bottom. The stones were round & slimy & many officers & men slipped on them & fell into the water, but all bravely & silently made all haste to reach the beach, under a perfect hail of bullets. Many men fixed their bayonets before reaching the shore. I ordered the men to lay down, fix bayonets & remove packs. This was done in a couple of minutes.

The men of 9, 10 & 11 Battalion were all mixed up on the beach but there was no time to organize so I ordered all to advance. The men sprang to their feet at once & with a cheer charged up the hill held by the Turks & drove them off it, following up their success by firing on the quickly retreating foe.

For the next 96 hours the men of the 10th Battalion experienced continuous fighting, shattered nerves and little or no sleep. If Andy was with the parts of his battalion fighting around 400 Plateau, then he was where the shrapnel was the heaviest. Shells burst just above the Australians. Red-hot pellets whipped through the air, flaying the unprotected backs of the men as they sought cover from enemy rifle and machine-gun fire.

Andy was hit.

He was ferried from the beach out to the ship Ionian with severe shrapnel wounds to his back.
Medical staff on board classified the wounds of the soldiers arriving, sending the dead and those
beyond help to a makeshift morgue in the ship’s hold.

Andy’s condition was assessed. He heard a voice say, “put him in the hold”.

As Andy was being consigned to the morgue he managed to say,
“Give us a bloody drink”.
Those words probably saved his life. He was moved to lie with the wounded.

Crammed full with wounded from the Gallipoli landing, the S.S. Ionian made for 17th General Hospital in Alexandria, Egypt. 

Andy was admitted to hospital on 1/5/1915. His condition was recorded as “dangerously ill”.

Andy’s hospital stay gave him some respite from the dysentry and enteric fever that swept through the men at Gallipoli. He was treated at Alexandria for 37 days, then spent another 12 days at Tanta Government Hospital.

17/6/915 Andy was discharged from hospital, carrying in his back the Turkish
shrapnel that was to torment him in later years.
He was judged fit for duty, and rejoined his unit at Gallipoli on 8/7/1915.

At the start of the great August offensive Andy was promoted to Company Sergeant Major.

During the battle for Lone Pine Andy’s battalion was in support at Silt Spur, holding the existing lines.

21/11/1915, in bitterly cold weather, the 10th Battalion left Gallipoli, rotated out of the line for a rest at Mudros on Lemnos island.

Andy spent Christmas day 1915 on Lemnos.
The next day he sailed for Egypt, disembarking at Alexandria on 29/12/1915 and entraining for Tel-el-Kebir Camp

The 10th Battalion sailed for France on the RMS Saxonia,
the men disembarking in Marseilles on 3/4/1916.

They quickly entrained for Strazeele, not far from Dunkirk. The three-day train journey across the lush French countryside must have been a welcome change from the scrubby gorse of Gallipoli and the sands of Egypt.

The next six weeks were spent training for the conditions of the Western Front, including drills for gas attacks.

On 6 June the battalion went into the line for the first time at Fleurbaix.

Soon they marched to join the ‘Big Push’ and the attack on Pozieres on 22 July.
The 3rd Brigade was heavily shelled with poison gas and high explosive shells,
but took Pozieres before dawn the next morning.

Andy was wounded in action. It was 24/7/1916, the start of a fierce and relentless German artillery bombardment that continued for days. Suffering from shell shock and a leg injury from an exploding shell he was sent to the 10th General Hospital in Rouen, then to England. He was admitted to the 3rd London General Hospital in Wandsworth on 2/8/1916, then moved to the 2nd Australian Auxiliary Hospital, Southall.

Hospitalised in England from 2 August to 18 September 1916, then marched into Command Depot No.2, Weymouth.

Andy was finally ready to return to duty in March 1917.

On 23 March – exactly 8 months after the taking of Pozieres –  Andy was transferred on strength to the 70th Battalion, to be temporary Regimental Sergeant Major at Wareham. He must have been thankful not to return to the front, but disappointed that he wasn’t on his way home.

May to July 1917 Andy was on Command at Officer School of Instruction, Chelsea Barracks, then at the No.3 School of Instruction for Infantry Officers, Candahar Barracks, Tidworth, until September 1917. He would have been involved in training Australian troops in musketry and trench warfare.

In mid-September Andy received notice that he would proceed overseas and rejoin his unit in France.

Andy disembarked in Le Havre on 13/10/1917. He would have had a slow, stop-start trip to rejoin his battalion in Flanders. Constant rain and artillery bombardment had created a quagmire that made transport almost impossible. The few roads that were passable were targets for the enemy’s shrapnel and high explosive shells.

Andy reached his unit in the mud and the mire near Passchendaele on 16 October. Many of the faces he had last seen at Pozières were missing; dead or disappeared, perhaps prisoners of war. He arrived at the tail-end of the 3rd Battle of Ypres [Ieper], just missing the actions at Polygon Wood and the disastrous diversionary raid at Celtic Wood.

10 November Andy left Ypres with the battalion for the Boulogne area.

After a month of training, rest and recovery, the battalion marched East and into the line at Messines [Mesen]. The weather was very cold. Flooded mine craters froze over.

1/3/1918  Hollebeke, Flanders  -  CSM A.S. Duncan missing presumed captured.

The night was very dark; conditions “very favourable to the enemy”.

At 9:49pm D Company came under heavy shelling.  During the barrage a German raiding party of an estimated 133 men advanced through No Man’s Land and crossed the battalion’s front line.

Captured were Major H.N. Henwood, Sergeant Major A.S. Duncan, Private P.M. Berthelsen, Private W.B. Crispe, Private S.T. Noble, Private W.S. Bell, Private Thomas and Private R. Daley. Major Henwood was killed during the raid, although accounts of what happened differed widely. Andy recalled that, after the Australians came out of the pill-box.

Andy was taken back to the German lines and separated from the other men.

I was kept for about an hour in the enemy trenches, the others being sent away. I was subjected to a vigorous cross-examination concerning our lines and dispositions. Straightway from the line I was marched to Ingelmunster. There I saw the three unwounded men who had been captured with me. At Ingelmunster I was again interrogated before being removed to Courtrai [Kortrijk]. I was here for about 17 days, kept in a cell, being daily interrogated.

Perhaps it was at Ingelmunster that Andy shared a cell with a German spy. The spy claimed to be a fellow Australian, but Andy saw through him: “I fed him a lot of bullshit”.

Ingelmunster was a collecting and interrogation station for recently captured prisoners, but for some reason the Germans did not process him as a prisoner of war. Andy became concerned about his captors’ motives for moving him to Courtrai.

Family stories that have been handed down probably relate to the Courtrai interrogations:

The Germans took Andy to a deserted farm house where he was held alone and interrogated for some time. During interrogation he was made to stand barefoot. A German soldier held a rifle by the barrel, the rifle stock hovering a distance above Andy’s toes. Andy would be asked a question. If his response was unsatisfactory, the rifle stock would be dropped and smash his toes. The interrogation left Andy with crushed, mangled toes and no toenails for the rest of his life.

Andy believed that his captors had no intention of taking him to a P.O.W. camp; rather they were planning to kill him once the interrogation was finished. This would be a simple matter for the Germans, as Andy was not yet officially registered as a Prisoner of War and no-one knew where he was.

Andy looked for some way to improve his situation. He knew that a railway line ran by the farm house and that trains passed regularly. He asked his guards to let him exercise in the farmyard once a day. He hoped that if he could get himself noticed by passengers on a passing train, someone might question why a solitary Australian soldier was walking around a Belgian farm behind the lines and not in a P.O.W. camp.

He was permitted to exercise outside and as luck would have it a Red Cross worker travelling by train did notice him and made enquiries. Soon after Andy was sent to a P.O.W. camp.

Towards the end of March 1918  Andy was moved from Courtrai to Dendermonde.

Arriving at the Dülmen camp, Andy was finally processed as a prisoner of war.

Andy was at Dülmen POW camp for only three weeks, not long enough to start receiving Red Cross parcels of food and clothing. Around the anniversary of the Gallipoli landing he was transferred to Limburg camp.

By August 1918 Andy had been moved twice more.

After three months in Limburg I went to Parchim and from there was sent to Springhesch [Springhirsch]. The latter is a “strafe” camp for N.C.O.s. Living conditions here, unspeakably disgusting.

“Strafe” was army slang for “punish” and strafe camps were designed to punish NCOs who would not volunteer for work. After the war the Aberdeen Daily Journal reported that Springhirsch NCOs.

The previous Russian internees had been relocated and the camp closed because of the appalling conditions, but it was reopened “for the benefit of the British NCO’s”.

Springhirsch camp was in the Province of Schleswig-Holstein, north of Hamburg near Kaltenkirchen. Prisoners’ recollections of the camp in the second half of 1918 were that it was cold, wet and windy. Fellow prisoner Sergeant A.E. Mead noted that there was scarcely a day without rain. Thunderstorms and heavy downpours were common. As winter neared icy winds would blow across the plain from the North Sea or the Baltic Sea, leaving each prisoner shivering beneath his two threadbare blankets. On 15 August Andy wrote from Springhirsch.

25/12/1918    CSM Duncan was released from Germany to England
                     arrived in England, repatriated

29/1/1919      admitted to 3rd Australian Auxillary Hospital, Dartford
10/2/1919      discharged from hospital, to Admin Headquarters

Granted 44 days leave with pay.
This was the ‘Anzac leave’ granted to 1914 enlistees. There is no record of how Andy spent his furlough in England. It would be nice to think he visited family in Ayr, seeing his parents again one last time (his father John would die in 1922; his mother Elizabeth in 1927).

12/5/1919      CSM Duncan returned to Australia, from England
                     on board HT Soudan
29/6/1919      disembarked into Melbourne, Victoria

14/7/1919      discharged from service in AIF in Melbourne, Victoria

Medals:
1914-15 Star (991); British War medal (4284); Victory medal (4290).

On 14/7/1919, the day before his 37th birthday, Andy was discharged from the AIF.

Andy and Jane had been married for 5 years but had spent barely 4 months as husband and wife. They must have been excited to restart their lives together. I imagine Jane was determined not to be separated from Andy again.

By mid 1920 Andy and Jane Duncan were just north of Roma, Queensland, where Andy took up a perpetual lease on the Mt. Hutton returned soldier settlement.

Soldier settlement schemes were established by Australia’s state governments to open up land for returning servicemen. In Queensland perpetual lease provisions were that no deposit of rent or survey fee were required up-front, and during the first three years only a peppercorn rent was charged. After the first three years the survey fee and rent increased.

Andy had 638 acres at Gunnewin, which he named Bonnie Brae Farm.  The land was poor, but Andy threw himself into making a go of the lease, establishing a dairy farm. The soldier settlers had a hard time of it. In May 1922 Queensland newspapers reported on conditions at the settlement.

For Andy the struggle with the land was made harder by the shrapnel he carried in his back. It prevented him from horse riding and when the shrapnel moved he had to take to bed. But he was determined to make a success of his farm.

Andy’s civic-mindedness was still strong, as was Jane’s. Andy was appointed Secretary of the Gunnewin Bush Nursing Centre and in May 1922 he became a founding member of the Mt. Hutton sub-branch of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League. He was appointed secretary and treasurer. Part of his role was to lobby for an increase in the returned soldier loan from an insufficient £625 to a hoped-for £1,000. The League sub-branch also sought State Government assistance to build new facilities at Gunnewin including a School of Arts, library and soldiers’ meeting room.

Andy and Jane had put their all into Bonnie Brae Farm yet there was no improvement in sight. There was no money to pay the increased survey fees and rent that were about to come due. They made the difficult decision to leave.

At the start of 1924 they returned to Victoria with their new daughter, Mavis Irene “Rene” Duncan, born 20/6/1922.

After a brief return to Beaufort Andy, Jane and Rene moved to Amherst (pronounced “AM-erst”) in 1926.

Andy became the sexton of Amherst Cemetery in February 1926. Andy was in need of work and the Cemetery Trustees were desperate to find a sexton and grave-digger.

February 1926 was the height of bushfire season. It was a hot, dry month without any rainfall to speak of. A number of bush and grass fires had already been reported in the Amherst district. Far away in the south-east of the state bushfires raged through the Yarra Valley and Gippsland, reaching their climax on "Black Sunday" 14 February, when 31 people were killed.

Andy Duncan commenced duty as sexton the week before Black Sunday. Amherst was surrounded by tinder-dry bushland. The cemetery itself was overgrown, with dry eucalyptus leaves and pine needles crackling underfoot.

A fire broke out. With no-one to call for assistance, Andy contained the fire and put it out before any great damage was done. The Talbot Leader reported that Mr Duncan “really saved the place”.

Thank you to Andy's great-grandson for his family (blog) information.

Sourced and submitted by Julianne T Ryan.  13/4/2015.  Lest we forget.