The following letter was published in The Lilydale Express. It doesn’t name the local soldier or his father, it just states they were from Lilydale – ‘I have been seriously thinking of enlisting for some time past. You might think I am only a bit of a kid yet, and don’t realise the hardships of life yet, but I can assure you it is the very reverse with me. On Sunday night you asked me if I were in any trouble or not, but I can assure you there is nothing wrong. The reason I left the way I did on Sunday night was that I could not supress the disappointment I felt when I got your answer. I feel that it is my duty as well as any other eligible to enlist. When I see some of the returned men without legs or arms or eyes it makes me feel a bit of a cad, stopping home here while their mates are away in the trenches fighting for us’.