JON FIELD
Toby’s Diary – Letters to Mother
Acrylic and Paper on Hardboard
180 x 122cms
This work is devoted to all the Men and Women who did not come home from the Great War.
Back in 1975 I found a diary in the rubbish in Chatswood.
This artwork follows the path of a young 22 year old man, as he goes to fight for his country in the Great War in 1916.
His letters sent back to his mother were carefully bound into small gold edged book. Precious memories of a mothers only child:
“My dearest Mother we are at present in the front-line trench. I will not be a coward. Goodbye my own Mother your devoted son Toby”
On the night of 16, August 1916 the young man Pte Arnold Drysdale Savage, no. 3255 was in the front line when a piece of shell cut off this left arm above the elbow and at the same time broke his leg near the thigh.
Reading his pocket bible, he passed away in the knowledge of a glorious death for a righteous cause.
