Local writer honours the Anzacs

The poem draws on Bill’s connection to the Anzacs and explores the hidden damage many soldiers carried upon returning to Australia.

“My dad was in the Navy in the Second World War, and we used to always, as kids, watch the Anazac Day parade on television. That resonated with me,” he said.

“A lot of the Anzacs came home ― and in the Second World War as well ― and had physical injuries which may have healed, but some of those mental scars never healed.”

Bill said he never intended for the poem to be read by anyone else, but he was motivated to honour the soldiers by not forgetting them.

“This is just something I felt from my heart,” he said.

More broadly, Bill said writing became a way for him to cope with life’s challenges over the past few decades.

He grew up in Echuca and attended local schools, undertook tertiary education in Bendigo, and later moved to Melbourne for more employment opportunities.

Working across various industries, including in the Victorian public sector and aged care, Bill eventually met his future wife, Paula, in his mid-40s.

Throughout this time and afterwards, Bill said he got into the habit of writing, and has amassed more than 175 original poems across the years.

“I continued to write because I thought it was a good way to express how you feel about the world and your place in it,” he said.

About five years ago, Paula and Bill returned to the area for a tree-change, choosing to call Moama home.

While writing has been a largely private exercise for Bill, he began seriously considering the idea of publishing work after joining the local Campaspe Murray Writers Group.

Bill is now working on a manuscript of selected poetry, which he said was not to earn him money or recognition, but in the hopes it may serve as a life-affirming document.

“I’d like to think that, just maybe, I can leave something to prove that, for a small sliver of time, I existed on beautiful planet Earth,” he said.

Below is William Sewell’s original poem, Welcome Home Digger.