When Donald Cracknell died on the battlefields of France in 1916 a bronze medallion was delivered to his mother.
The Dead Man’s Penny, sent on behalf of King George V, did little to ease Susan Cracknell’s heartache of losing her 23-year-old son.
“None of them spoke about him,” the young soldier’s niece Adele Cockburn said. “In my grandmother’s lounge room there was a round table with a Bible and Uncle Donald’s photo next to it.
“There would always be a bunch of flowers on the table.”
Mr Cracknell was a 22-year-old lorry driver from the village of Kayuga outside of Muswellbrook when he enlisted in West Maitland on November 4, 1915.
Full article available at Maitland Mercury, April 23, 2014.
