By BRIDGET SCOTT
PAKENHAM RSL president Gary Elliott was privileged to make a presentation to a “dumfounded” Berwick resident last Wednesday when he reunited the man with his father’s war medals.
Donald Cook couldn’t believe his luck when Mr Elliott visited his home in Berwick last week, the same day as Mr Cook and wife Nancy’s 65th wedding anniversary, to present the man with his father’s war medals from WWI.
“He was very pleased,” Mr Elliott said.
Mr Cook thought the medals had been lost for good after they were last seen at his late brother’s house who lived in Queensland.
“He thought they were gone and had been lost.”
Mr Cook’s father, the late Thomas Edward Henry Cook was enlisted as Edward Cook on 25 August 1914, and was an orchardist from Pakenham South. Penny Harris-Jennings did the research on behalf of the Pakenham RSL after Mr Elliott was mailed the war medals from a man in Queensland who said they were left behind in his father’s unit.
“How on earth they got from the brothers house to the man’s garage I have no idea,” Mr Elliott said.
Ms Harris-Jennings was able to track down the next of kin of the medals, a war veteran himself, Mr Donald Cook enlisted in 1942 and was born in Pakenham.
Mr Cook’s daughter Dianne Stillman helped the members from the RSL in organising the presentation and helped keep it a secret in the lead up to the afternoon.
