Soldier Songs From ANZAC (1916) By Signaller Tom Skeyhill
Tom Skeyhill was born at Terang, Victoria, the son of Irish immigrants. After completing his education at St Mary's Convent School, Hamilton, he worked as a telegraph messenger and telephonist. A regular competitor in elocution and debating competitions with the Hibernian Society, he earned a significant reputation as a reciter in his teenage years.
Skeyhill enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in August 1914 and landed at Anzac Cove as a signaller on 25 April 1915. Several weeks later he was blinded by an exploding Turkish shell, an event that Jeff Brownrigg in his biography of Skeyhill, Anzac Cove to Hollywood (2010), argues as probably fabricated. Skeyhill wrote verse during his convalescence and in November 1915 he recited a number of these in full Gallipoli uniform at Melbourne's Tivoli Theatre. Some of these compositions had been previously published in London, Cairo and Melbourne press and in December they were collected in book form as Soldier Songs from ANZAC, 'Written in the Firing Line by Signaller Tom Skeyhill'.
The collection proved extremely popular, requiring five editions and selling more than twenty thousand copies in four months. As Signaller Tom Skeyhill, 'the blind soldier poet', he toured Australia, lecturing, reciting and raising money for the Red Cross. He was discharged in September 1916 and left Australia the following year to begin a lecturing tour of North America.
The copy is a Hard Copy First Edition Published in London.
The Book is in great condition except for the front Dust Jacket which has been torn.
