Century of honour

ONE of Hobart’s most significant war memorials will mark a major milestone next week.

The first trees on the Soldiers Memorial Avenue on Queens Domain were planted in 1918 to honour the more than 500 Tasmanian soldiers, and one nurse, who were killed in WWI.

The memorial’s centenary will be commemorated on Friday, August 3.

Friends of Soldiers’ Memorial Avenue (FOSMA) president John Wadsley said the memorial continues to resonate with Tasmanians 100 years on.

“So many families still have very real connections to the avenue,” Mr Wadsley said.

“There are lots of members of [FOSMA] that regularly go to the avenue to remember loved ones, my own family included, but we are seeing an increasing number of people who are discovering they have connections to the avenue.

“That’s really special for us, because it means that the restoration of the avenue will actually help those connections last into the future.”

Mr Wadsley said it was important the mem-orial was preserved and maintained in perpetuity.y.

“It was initiated in 1918 very much from a community-driven desire to remember those men — and one womann — who were lost duringg the Great War,” he said.

“More than anything,g, it represents not only the families’ desires, but the whole community’s desires to remember their sacrifice.”

The 16-page A Century of the Soldiers’ Memorial Avenue liftout in today’s Mercury examines the memorial’s centenary in detail.