Surrounded by family and friends, the book “Last of the Cavalrymen: Memoirs of Major-General Robert Harley Wordsworth, compiled with the help of her daughter Charlotte over the past 10 years, was officially launched by Bridget Archer MP.
There was also a launch at the Anglesea Barracks in Hobart on Tuesday night.
The book paints a picture of a loyal subject of his time, a man of service and courage, someone who grasped opportunities when they came his way and who, by his own admission, had a very lucky life.
It’s a fascinating account of one of the most unusual military careers of any Australian, all thanks to a tape recorder Ana handed her dad 40 years ago to capture his oral history.
“My father was an active sportsman, even in his senior years, and he loved fly fishing,” Ana said.
“The time came when we were scared he’d fall and drown in his waders, but without that outlet he just got crotchety sitting in his study.
“One day I gave him a tape recorder and asked him to recount his life. What I found on the tapes, after he died in 1984, was a lot of intriguing, but jumbled up memories.”
“Wordy” as he was known, had recorded many hours on the audio tapes between 1979 and 1983 from his home in Longford.
“At the time I was a young mother and working and the tapes just sat there and sat there. But I’d promised my brother David, who is 16 years older than me and now 93 and getting frail, that I’d do it eventually.
“Suddenly I realised I’ve got to get this done before it’s too late for both of us.”
Ana said that her father’s recollections were so hard to believe that she really wanted to do the research just to see if they were true – and it turns out they were!
But she wasn’t sure how to go about telling the stories, eventually deciding she wanted to hear it told in her father’s voice, complemented by short breakout stories found during the research process.
The memoirs detail a military career that spanned both World Wars, with General Wordsworth beginning as a junior officer in the 1st Light Horse at Gallipoli and later transferring to a cavalry regiment of the Indian Army where he spent 25 years in the rarefied world of the British Raj, playing polo and big game hunting with maharajas and other royalty.
One side story involves the famous Australian aviator Sir Ross Smith, who along with his Brother Sir Keith Smith, became the first pilots to fly from England to Australia, in 1919.
“Ross took my father up for his first flight over present-day Gazza in Palestine, my father actually signed his papers so he could join the air force when his superior officer wouldn’t – on the promise of being taken up for a flight,” Ana said.
“They went up in a plane that was under repair, without guns, with German planes flying around, and my father asked ‘what will you do if the enemy attacks?’ He replied ‘I’ll fly straight at him and he’ll chicken out’.”
General Wordsworth was an original Anzac, sent off to Gallipoli with the 1st Light Horse Regiment when he was just 20 years of age.
As a teenager in Cowra, Western NSW, he had been part of the school cadets, and as the only Light Horse member with any “military experience” he was put in charge of 30 men, all older.
“When they arrived in Gallipoli, they were forced to leave their horses and join the soldiers in the trenches where he remained for the next seven months,” Ana said.
“He lost a lot of good mates – one battle at Dead Man’s Ridge saw 75 percent of the regiment killed or wounded.”
During the Battle of Rafa, Mr Wordsworth was recognised for his bravery.
In 1917, as the war drew to a close and after a falling out with one of his superiors, he decided to transfer to a cavalry regiment in the Indian Army.
Despite being looked down upon by the British as a “colonial”, General Wordsworth nevertheless rose quickly through the ranks based on his ability to play polo.
He became captain of the regimental polo team and played nationally and internationally, even returning to Australia for games.
He met his wife, a Tasmanian, while in India. She was Margaret Ross-Reynolds and her uncle was also a colonel of a regiment there and a fellow polo player.
They were married in Hobart during one of the scheduled polo tournaments in Australia.
While there strategically to protect the British in India, most of his time was spent fighting wild tribesman from Afghanistan.
Despite being treated like a god in India, General Wordsworth trained and sold polo ponies to have enough money to mix with the rich.
They lived the same life of privilege as the British Raj – their clothes were laid out, their baths were drawn, and they never had to cook or clean.
The couple spent all their leave in the wilds of Cashmere fly fishing.
During WWII General Wordsworth was in command of an armoured division tasked with protecting the oil wells off Iraq and eventually the occupation of Persia/Iran.
First and foremost a horseman, General Wordsworth took three horses to war.
His favourite had won the Cowra picnic races, and stayed with him throughout WWI, even after taking a bullet in the neck.
His favourite polo pony was Alfonse who he bought cheaply as an Indian army castoff.
In his tape recordings he said the horse knew the game better than he did, and he could have ridden him without stirrups such was his mount’s ability to pre-empt every move of the ball.
Of course all the horses were left behind when the war ended, gifted to worthy acquaintances with much sadness, and General Wordsworth returned to Australia to spend the next few years adjusting to driving armoured vehicles instead.
After WWII ended Mr Wordsworth and his wife retired to Tasmania, taking up land at “The Bend” at Westbury.
Having never worked on a farm, General Wordsworth decided he would be better suited to public service life, and accepted a dare to stand for the Senate, a position he held for the next 10 years through the 1950s.
During this time, the Wordsworths purchased Hagley House which is where Ana spent her teenage years while her brother went off to agriculture college in New Zealand.
General Wordsworth’s final role was as administrator on Norfolk Island, where he led the turnaround in governance, transport and the tourism industry.
Upon retirement in 1984 the couple moved to Longford to be close to the fishing hot spots.
Ana went to Broadland College and later worked for Civil Aviation minister senator Denholm Henty.
Like her father she found herself following a career that took her far and wide, first to Canberra working in foreign affairs and then overseas to Africa, Yugoslavia and then Western Australia where David was living during the nickel boom.
“I decided to go to Perugia to study Italian for six months and met my husband-to-be, Chris, on the boat on the way over – he was the ship’s doctor,” Ana said wryly.
“We eventually came back to Sydney and got married and had two children.”
Ana studied for a business degree and became a consultant for workplace change, specialising in industrial relations right when unions were finding their feet.
Little wonder her father’s transcripts were put on the back burner.
With the first hard copy now in her hands (the book is in paperback for the general public), Ana said she is euphoric to have it finished.
“All I wanted to know was what David thought – and this is a man who is an avid reader and has more than 2000 books in his library,” she said.
“He said he was amazed, and he cried for days.”
The book has a RRP of $49.95 (FortySouth Publishing) and can be ordered at lucinda.sharp@fortysouth.com.au and is available at Petrach’s and Fullers Bookshops.