Kaiparoro and Brooweena links (1)

Earlier I wrote about Shirley and Trevor McIcvor, whose photographs of the Brooweena war memorial bridge formed past of their project to record all the Queensland war memorials for their book "Salute the brave". 

I managed to get in touch with them and had this lovely reply from Shirley: 

You have a "one only" Kaiparoro bridge in New Zealand and thank you for the very clear photo of it that you sent. The link you have made with Brooweena and the Bridge Creek Memorial Bridge is very special... The late Mr and Mrs L S Smith, of Mt Joseph Station, who erected it, would doubtless be amazed that the 9 fallen, and 38 local soldiers from their area will now be honoured in New Zealand also.

As we found when we toured Queensland researching for "Salute the Brave" it is rather staggering when reading such long lists of names from what were then very isolated country regions, and the loss of so many young men must have had long lasting effects. 

We have been involved in many projects including our CD-Rom on Queensland War Memorials and Tributes. On 15th November 2015, ABC Television in Australia screened an hour honouring personnel mentioned on war memorials and we had a short segment on that, which you could probably pick up on Google if you wish. 

Our work also formed the basis for the Queensland war memorial register which now has about 1400 war memorials and thousands of photos listed in alphabetical order of towns.

Thank you again for making contact.

Sincerely
Shirley 

Shirley also emailed a photo of this Anzac fretwork which Trevor made some years ago. 

Bridge Creek memorial bridge

So this is where my search finally took me, to the Brooweena war memorial bridge, located 21 km south of Brooweena on the road to Woolooga. 

The Queensland War Memorial Register has this description of it: 

The bridge was funded and erected on a public road by Mr and Mrs L S Smith of nearby Mt Joseph Station who wished to make their own commemorative gesture during WWI.

It is a substantial wooden bridge over a small creek with a pair of sandstone piers at each end. Leaded marble plates are fixed to the piers.

A small commemorative stone cairn with metal plaque was later erected at the entry to the bridge by the Smith's son.

Brooweena Memorial Bridge - sign. Source: Shirley and Trevor McIvor

Brooweena Memorial Bridge Cairn. Source: Shirley and Trevor McIvor

Brooweena Memorial Bridge. Source: Shirley and Trevor McIvor

Brooweena Memorial Bridge. Source: Shirley and Trevor McIvor

Brooweena Memorial Bridge - Declaration plaque. Source: Shirley and Trevor McIvor

Brooweena Memorial Bridge - Peace plaque. Source: Shirley and Trevor McIvor

I really like the fact that it has a Peace Plaque as well as one that marks the Declaration of war.

You might have noticed that several of these photos are credited to Shirley and Trevor McIvor. They are such lovely photos that I thought the McIvors might be an interesting couple to talk to about the Brooweena bridge, so I tried to find out more about them, and what I found was fascinating! 

Trevor McIver was an electrical fitter in Toowoomba, but in 1983 he received a severe electric shock which had ongoing repercussions. He was told he might soon be in a wheelchair, so he and his wife Shirley toured nearby area around the Sunshine Coast to find out what sort of places had good wheelchair access, in case he needed it in the future. Luckily he didn’t need the wheelchair, but in the meantime they published two books on wheelchair access in the area, which prompted other tourist attractions to make their sites wheelchair friendly.

The McIvors didn’t stop there. While driving round looking for wheelchair-friendly sites, they noticed that almost every community had a war memorial that was often easily seen from a car, and these would make for an interesting road trip, even if someone in a wheelchair couldn’t get out of a car easily. So they approached the University of South Queensland Press to ask if they would be interested in a book about them, and USQ Press said yes, but only if the McIvors covered all the war memorials across the whole of Queensland.

This was obviously going to be a much bigger project (in the end they drove over 40,000km to and fro across the state), but the McIvors said yes, partly as a tribute to Shirley’s father George Jamieson (who was on Gallipoli and later received the Military Cross at Buckingham Place) and other veterans.  They published Salute the brave: a pictorial record of Queensland war memorials in 1994.

I love this story because it show how they took a piece of bad luck and turned misfortune into something that has since benefited so many people. (During the launch for their book, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs announced that the Government was going to fund a programme to make sure that war memorials were restored and maintained.)

So thanks to Shirley and Trevor McIvor for these photos of the Brooweena bridge.