Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 595
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[Page 595]
(40)
We went to all of the eighteen cemeteries, glancing at the headstones: they were all beautifully kept, the grass closely cut, the flower beds well dug and weeded, and the paths gravelled smoothly. This work being done by Turkish civilians under the supervision of Major Millington (an elderly Tasmanian) an officer of the British War Graves Commission. There were so very many of the headstones that recorded that the fallen soldier named had no known grave, or marked the resting place of remains that could not be identified "A soldier known only to God". I saw the graves of a score of my erstwhile comrades in the Second Battalion, fine fellows I had known well, and a host of graves of other members of this unit. In the end we found the name of Bill's brother Reg in a long roll of honour of the fallen who had no known graves, on the side of the big monument at Lone Pine.
We returned to Chanakkale, and that evening entertained Major Millington at dinner in what he considered was the best restaurant in the town. The next afternoon we flew back to Istanbul for a couple of days before flying to Rome, via Athens, in a big jet aircraft to attend the Olympic games. On the afternoon of our arrival we had the pride and pleasure of seeing Herb Elliott win the "thousand metres" in fine style.
Bill and I had very comfortable private accommodation in part of a luxury flat in the Grotta Pinta, the site of Pompey's Theatre in ancient Rome. It had rather intricate access to one of the main avenues. In our haste to get out to the games on the day of our arrival we had left the written address in the flat, and after a late dinner at a Corso restaurant that night we discovered this lapse and also that neither of us could remember the address or even the locality. We knew it was off a bigger square behind a big old church on one of the main streets. So we tramped these streets all night trying to find the place, and finally we had to wait until the games bureau (which had found us this accommodation) opened at 9 a.m. to get the address again.
When Signora Cassinadri our landlady saw us entering at 10 a.m. we explained the reason, but by the twinkle in her eye