In a bitterly cold Prisoner of War camp in Germany 100 years ago, a handknitted jumper helped keep Susan Stephens’ grandfather alive.
The Lapstone resident remembers the jumper – believed to be knitted by a fellow Australian PoW – as being one of her grandfather Hedley Stephens' most prized possessions.
The jumper has remained in the family and still brings Ms Stephens much joy to look at and hold.
“One can only imagine the life and environment of the maker of the jumper – and how it would have given much needed warmth to my grandfather,” Ms Stephens said.
“As a knitter of many years I admire the quality and skills of the work.”
She believes the jumper was made by Lance Corporal Percy Augustus Burge from Victoria, a fellow PoW in the camp in Dulmen, Germany, who knitted a jumper on display in the War Memorial in Canberra.
“It bears an uncanny resemblance to my grandfather’s, and I think it is likely it was knitted by the same person,” Ms Stephens said.
The Victorian had used the wool from the tops of worn out socks, and wire for knitting needles, to create the garment.
Soldier Hedley Stephens was caught in No Mans Land in May 1916. Suffering shrapnel wounds and disorientated, he crawled to what he thought was the Australian trenches, only to realise the men were speaking German. He was captured and spent the next two and a half years as a Prisoner of War.
Meanwhile, his family had been advised he was dead, and it was almost two weeks before the mistake was rectified.
“Grandfather did come home from the war, and always praised the care that he was given by the German medical team,” Ms Stephens said.
He returned to Australia in February 1919 and was declared medically unfit and given a few acres to farm at Kurmond. Here he went on to marry and have eight children. The veteran moved to Lapstone in the 1960s, and died at a nursing home in Springwood in 1972.
“I remember he was a lovely man. I always got on well with him,” said Ms Stephens’ mum Thelma; Hedley’s daugher-in-law.
“But if he didn’t like someone he was a very bad enemy. I found him a lovely, gentle man.”
Susan Stephens has been keen to carry on the tradition of her grandfather’s knitted jumper, so several years ago she picked up her knitting needles and knitted a jumper with a similar cable design but in a size that fits a 21st Century woman rather than a PoW.
“It is one of my proudest knitting achievements and one I would like to have shown my grandfather,” she said.
“I would like to sit and write a knitting pattern and possibly publish it.”
