With so much of our news focused on pandemics in 2020, it will come as no surprise to learn that at the end of the Great War the citizens of Albury were not immune to the ravages of the Spanish flu.
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One unlucky casualty was dental mechanic, Percy George Edwards, who was employed by dentist Mr H.E. Noble of Albury's Dean Street.
Mr Edwards was well known in town as he umpired football games in his spare time and played the flugelhorn in the Albury Town Band.
On March 4, 1915, Mr Edwards enlisted in the Australian Army Medical Corps Dental Service for service abroad in the Great War.
He initially went to the Cootamundra Depot Camp, a depot for newly enlisted soldiers before they were despatched to training camps.
He was then posted to Liverpool, west of Sydney, which was the site of the main camp for the reception and basic training of recruits for the AIF in NSW.
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There he used his professional skills to service the dental needs of trainees.
Medically, 1917 was a challenging year for Mr Edwards.
During May and June he spent time on Milson Island in the Hawkesbury.
Then in July he was operated on at the Field Hospital at Liverpool for a hernia.
Mr Edwards must have made a good recovery, because on October 1, 1918 he underwent and passed a medical examination at Liverpool.
A month later on November 2, HMAT A7 Medic steamed out of Sydney Harbour bound for the UK and the war front in Europe, with Staff Sergeant Percy Edwards a member of the Australian Army Dental Corps on board.
HMAT A7 Medic first went to New Zealand in order to pick up general service reinforcements.
But on November 11, 1918, while HMAT A7 Medic was in Auckland, the Armistice took effect and it was recalled to Sydney.
These troops were indeed fortunate never to suffer from the trauma of fighting at the front.
Nevertheless, grave misfortune soon befell them.
Soon after departure from Auckland, pneumonic influenza broke out and HMAT A7 Medic became the Ruby Princess of its day. Of those on board, 297 contracted the Spanish flu, and unfortunately Mr Edwards was among them.
For most, the dose was mild.
The ship arrived back in Sydney on November 21, and unlike the Ruby Princess, its full complement went into quarantine at the quarantine station at North Head, Manly.
At that time the virus in Australia was confined to quarantine stations, though it was widespread in New Zealand.
Twelve servicemen died.
The first was Private Walter McCronan, who died on November 23 1918.
Just a few days later, on December 1, Mr Edwards of Albury also died, aged 29.
Mr Edwards was buried in the Third Cemetery at the North Head Quarantine Station with full military honours, although no Roman Catholic priest was allowed to administer last rites or conduct a burial service.
The Federal government's decision to refuse ministers of religion entry to the Manly Quarantine Station caused great distress to Albury's Father William Slattery, the Edwards family and members of the Albury and broader Roman Catholic community, including Archbishop Mannix.
Sadly, no member of the Edwards family was present at the burial.
In 1924, Mr Edwards nearest next-of-kin, his father John Edward Edwards, received what colloquially came to be known as a Dead Man's Penny, as it was sent to the family of soldiers killed in the line of service.
It was a circular bronze plaquette, which at a diameter of 120mm, was considerably larger than a penny.
It included an image of Britannia holding a trident and standing with a lion, and a rectangular tablet bearing the name 'Percy George Edwards.'
The reverse was blank.
In Sydney on March 10, 1922, Mr Edwards' sister Mary Clare Edwards, known as Clare, married Bob Matthews, the senior mechanic at the Albury Telephone Exchange.
It was Mr Matthews who, on the night of October 23, 1934, assisted radio announcer Arthur Newnham in the ABC 2CO studio when the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Uiver made its successful emergency landing on the Albury Racecourse.
Mr Matthews was on the phone with Beatrice Peacock, who was in the front room of her home overlooking the Albury Racecourse while describing the unfolding drama. Mr Matthews vocally conveyed that information to Arthur Newnham.
Who in turn relayed it by phone to the state manager of the ABC in Melbourne, ensuring its broadcast to the world.
Mr Matthews also managed the technical arrangements for Arthur Newnham's interviews with passenger Piet Gilissen and pilot Captain Koene Parmentier.
He facilitated numerous phone calls that included those between Captain Parmentier and KLM Director Albert Plesman in Den Haag, as well as family members of the crew at De Telegraaf in Amsterdam.
Those in the Netherlands were greatly reassured by speaking personally with Mr Parmentier.
The Percy George Edwards who died from the Spanish flu was the brother-in-law in prospect of Mr Matthews, a man who assisted the person most responsible for the saving of the KLM Uiver in Albury.
One wonders whether, had he survived, this community spirited young man would also have volunteered to assist in the Uiver rescue on that stormy night in 1934?