General News
3 December, 2025
From Western Victoria to the Western Front
Keeping the significance and memory alive of the ultimate sacrifice many Australians paid during World War I has been a labour of love for Dimboola-based military historian, Pam Cupper, but more recently, specifically tailored for an “emphasis on Western Victorian associations”.
As a past organiser of trips to the Western Front and Gallipoli, she will be travelling over to the historical sites once again in September next year.
She said the trips emerged organically out of contact with the Horsham Historical Society in 2017.
“They'd been researching the centenary of the First World War, and they produced … the books, ‘Strewth’ – which is all of the Horsham names and associations,” Pam said.
“They'd researched all of these thoroughly, and during their research, they said, ‘Why don't we actually go to the battlefield site?’ Then they invited me to tell of how to do that, which I did. Then they said, ‘Well, you'll lead us, won't you?’ So it grew out of that.”
She said she’s been back many times with different cohorts, including government and school groups.
“I've organised another one for 2026, which will be along the same lines of visiting Gallipoli and then the Western Front,” Pam said.
“The people who go on the trip almost always have someone that they want to locate, as in a memorial, a grave, or even just the location that they served.”
She laughed when asked how many times now she’s visited – “I’m starting to lose track … I suppose I’ve been to Gallipoli probably a dozen times” but was keen to give a memorable experience for those who had never been, even for those who had little to no family reasons for going.
“We had a bloke on the 2019 trip from Edenhope, and he didn't have any personal connections,” Pam said.
“So what he did was he took down the names from the Edenhope memorial for the First World War of those who had died, and then tracked them down.
“In 2017, there were people from Hopetoun, and there was no particular connection to these two brothers who were killed. But when we got to the cemetery where one of them was buried, they said, ‘Look, this is like we're home, because the two brothers came from Hopetoun.’
“They didn't know them, of course, but they said, there's a feeling of, ‘we've come from the same place’.”
She said adults on trips quite often had a mission in mind similar to the formalised ‘adopt a digger’ program that has inspired many schoolchildren, and hoped people would consider coming along for what may end up being her final battlefields tour.
“My husband and I wrote the first modern guidebook to Gallipoli, which was published in 1989, and until then, there weren't any guidebooks to the battlefields at Gallipoli,” Pam said.
The planned September 2026 tour will include four days on the Gallipoli Peninsula, visiting sites such as Anzac Cove, Lone Pine, and The Nek.
Flying from Istanbul to Brussels, Belgium, the group will be based for four days in Ieper (Ypres, or Wipers; as it was known to the soldiers), attending the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate and exploring battlefields where men from this district fought in the Third Battle of Ypres at Passchendaele and Messines.
The tour group will then travel south along the former Western Front, visiting Bullecourt on the way to Amiens, where they will be based for four days.
From Amiens, they will explore the 1916 Somme battlefields and the sites of battles that led to victory in November 1918; visits include Pozieres, the Victoria School, the Australian Memorial at Villers Bretonneux and the Sir John Monash Centre.
Before departing Australia, Pam and her husband, Phil Taylor, will research individuals who have significant connections to tour members or their communities, so the tour will visit locations of particular interest to the participants, including cemeteries and memorials.
A feature of the 2026 tour will be the inclusion of non-war-related sites, such as the town of Bruges in Belgium, and tours in Istanbul, Brussels, and Paris.
The tour will be 21 days, flying from Melbourne on August 31 and returning on September 20.
To register your interest, please contact Pam on 0429 260 466 or email pamcupper@gmail.com.