Cheer Up

We visited the The Spirit of Anzac Centenary Experience this afternoon.  It was extraordinarily well done, in fact so well done, I simply had to leave - I found it very disturbing. It's an initiative of the Australian Government and the Australian War Memorial and is travelling all over the country.  

There wasn't really any shocking imagery of dead bodies and the like, it was just the words and thoughts of the people at the time.  They were so innocent, and so carefree - and their whole world vanished in the first puff of smoke issuing from a cannon.

Anyway, the Violet was the symbol of the Cheer Up Society.

The Cheer-Up Society was a uniquely South Australian organisation established in 1914 by Adelaide businesswoman Alexandrine (Alexandra) Seager and William Sowden of the Register newspaper to provide for the needs of soldiers on the move during the First World War.
ESTABLISHMENT
Staffed largely by women volunteers, the society began offering refreshment and recreation in a large tent north of the Adelaide Railway Station early in 1915. The tent was replaced by a hut, built through fundraising and with material and labour donated by local businesses and tradespeople. The Cheer-Up Hut opened on 4 November 1915.
The opening of the Cheer-Up Hut was accompanied by a ‘Button Day’ to raise funds for the society and its work. The sale of especially designed buttons or badges began at 8am with ‘an army of girls’ selling them in the main streets of Adelaide. The women volunteers were organised into groups representing those ‘fighting at the front’. The 3rd and 9th Light Horse, the 10th, 12th, 16th and 27th Battalions, and the Army Medical Corps were all represented. Some wounded returned soldiers also assisted.
Here's the link if you want to read more.