PRIVATE JOHN GEORGE TWEDDELL
AUSTRALIAN ARMY MEDICAL CORPS
6TH NOVEMBER 1916 AGE 20
BURIED: DARTMOOR CEMETERY, BECORDEL-BECOURT, FRANCE
John Tweddell, a stoker, fireman on the railways, embarked from Australia in October 1915 to serve with the Australian 1st Field Ambulance. He died of wounds - two fractured lags and laceration of his eye - in the 1st Anzac Main Dressing Station, France, on 6 November 1916.
His widowed mother chose his inscription and to me it has an echo of the Roman poet Catullus's farewell to his brother.
By ways remote and distant waters sped,
Brother, to thy sad grave-side I am come,
That I may give the last gifts to the dead,
Since she who now bestows and now denies
Hath taken thee, hapless brother, from mine eyes.
But lo! these gifts, their heirlooms of past years,
Are made sad things to grace thy coffin shell,
Take them, all drenched with a brother's tears,
And, brother, for all time, hail and farewell!
Hail and Farewell - Ave Atque Vale. Catullus had come a great distance to visit his brother's grave, to salute him and say 'for all time' good-bye'. Mrs Tweddell sent her inscription from a great distance to say 'for all time' remembrance. It sounds very much like a quotation to me but I can't find it anywhere, only as this inscription.