Sophie Haythornthwaite – child ghost of lone pine (Lance Corporal John Auguste Harris)

SOPHIE HAYTHORNTHWAITE

Child ghost of Lone Pine (Lance Corporal John Auguste)

Oil on canvas

40cm circular

‘I am saddened by the idea of children going to war in any country, and when I saw the Australian War Memorial List of the Boy Soldiers who enlisted to fight in the First World War it really affected me as the parent of a 19 year old.

I looked at the faces of these boys, some as young as 14, and read their stories, and the beautiful, gentle face of this particular boy, John Auguste Emile Harris, began to haunt me.

He was only 15 years old when he was killed in action at Lone Pine, and he is buried there in Lone Pine Cemetery.

Something about him, the mixture of bravery and idealism that made him want to enlist, and the fact that he was so young and died so far from home made me want to paint him and to try and bring life and colour back to his face. And to try and capture the almost elegiac expression he wears in his formal studio portrait in uniform.

I sense the hint of some premonition, as if he somehow knew he would not have long to live.

I feel that along with his body, his spirit still resides at Lone Pine, a sweet and gentle ghost who never lived to become a man.