Thursday, December 01, 2005

Western Front

I'm working on a CD-ROM for the Dept of Veterans Affairs at the moment. It's a school resource about the Western Front in WWI, designed to be useful for teachers from kindergarten up to grade 12. Some of the written accounts are very disturbing indeed. One nice little oddment stuck out though - from this list of the occupations of Australian men and women who enlisted.

Professional 15,719
Clerical 24,340
Tradesmen 112,452
Labourers 99,252
Country callings 57,430
Seafaring 6,562
Miscellaneous 14,122
Nurses 2,063

Isn't that nice? All the roustabouts, shearers and general hayseed farmhands come under "country callings".

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