Insight into Diggers’ life

More than 40 people gathered outside the WA Museum at Geraldton to see the opening of the Lost Diggers of Vignacourt exhibit.

The photography collection showcases a set of postcard photos taken for diggers to send home to their families, discovered in an old trunk in a French barn five years ago.

WA Museum director of creative and regional development James Dexter said the photos were special because they showed the men when they were relatively relaxed.

GALLERY: Photos from the official opening

“Other portraits we have of the First World War are either before deployment or wide photos of battlefield conflict, which don’t show the emotions or faces of our soldiers,” he said.

“These postcards were really the email of the day, in 1906 seven billion postcards were produced in Great Britain alone.

“Although this had begun to decline by the war these were a very immediate tool for soldiers to show their families where they were, what they were doing and who their mates were.

“It’s a tremendous insight into that period between action that is so rarely documented.”

The exhibit will run until May 1, and any locals who are able to identify as-yet-unnamed soldiers in the photos are asked to submit their names and details to the museum.