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[Page 134]
1
By his Father
Dene Barrett Fry was born at Lewisham, some 4 miles from Sydney on 11 Oct., 1893, so was 21 years 7 months old when he enlisted, 17-5-1915 and 23 years 6 months when he was killed. 9-4-17.
After infant school, he went for 3 years to Chatswood, and about 4 years to Lindfield and Fort Street Public Schools. The family came to live at Lindfield when he was about 10, and there is no doubt that it was living in the wild country on the North Shore Line that developed the love of Nature that was so strong in him.
"He took delight in simple things." As a boy roaming about the spacious hills and gullies of Middle Harbour and for miles around, he made acquaintance with birds, animals, frogs and snakes, and seemed to understand them without teaching : he handled "creepy things" fearlessly and treated them as personal friends. He was an expert with traps and caught bandicoots, possums, native cats, birds and snakes, housed them, and studied them with loving interest in the ramshackle cages that he made. He made baths for his frogs with rocks and cement, and would watch day by day for weeks the evolutions of bird life in the solitude of the rocky gully where he lived. For years there was no other house in sight all round the horizon. He was a daring tree-climber, and if Dene could not reach a nest, well – the others passed it by.
He was fair to average at school, but his books were most noticeable for the highly imaginative designs with which he decorated them – he was an artist from birth.
At the time of the Boer War, 1902-03, when he was 9 to 10 years old, his thoughts ran riot over the battle fields he heard people talking of, and on every scrap of paper he drew pictures whose originality caused them to pass all round the neighborhood. And up to 13 and 14 he furtively produced rhymes. All the time he was a happy-go-lucky, irresponsible lad, who enjoyed every hour of his life.