Anzac Day: World War I replica sheepskin vests show home front support (ABC)

ABC The replica Digger's Vest produced for the 2015 Gallipoli Centenary.

An Anzac centenary project is shining a light on the ingenuity, generosity and compassion of Australians who supported World War I diggers from the home front.

A digger wrote home to his family, "It feels like it's soaked up the Australian sunshine."

It was perhaps the most evocative testimonial to the morale-boosting properties of sheepskin vests that were distributed to every Australian soldier who fought in the 1914-18 war.

John Gillam and Yvonne Fletcher came across it while researching a book, Men in Sheepskin - The Centenary of the Digger's Vest, about this often-overlooked act of warmth that brought great comfort to the diggers during the bone-chilling winters of World War I.

Mr Gillam says more than 100,000 soldiers from all armies died from the cold during the winter of 1916-17 - which at the time was the worst freeze to hit Europe for 60 years.

Grim reality of hostile terrain and weather

Ms Fletcher says diggers spent days and weeks standing in muddy trenches and virtually freezing to death.

"In a letter home in March 1917, Private Dudley Parker said the water was often so deep he needed gum boots up to his waist," she said .

"He joked to his family that someone thought they'd seen a submarine."

Behind that black humour was the unrelentingly grim reality of a war being waged a long way from home, in unfamiliar terrain and in hostile weather.

John Land, curator of the Australian Army Infantry Museum at the Lone Pine Barracks in Singleton, says a lack of adequate warm clothes spurred local communities into action.

"As the war and the winters rolled on, family and friends of Australian servicemen and women rallied to the cause, knitting socks and scarves and balaclavas, anything to keep them warm," he said.

Ms Fletcher says then they borrowed an idea they had seen used by other armies: sheep and goat-skin fleeces.

"Various prototypes were produced for public comment before settling on a practical and robust design that included a high collar around the neck and a low-cut back to protect the kidneys," she said.

Army of volunteers

Woolgrowers gave the campaign some real momentum by donating half a million sheepskins.

Wool brokers collected them, arranged tanning, and the Red Cross then co-ordinated an army of volunteers to stitch them together.

"Everything was easy to hand - even the belts and buckles were horse bridles," Mr Gillam said.

"Each vest took three sheepskins and they worked out at seven shillings each - around a days' pay at that time."

Sheep were not only involved in the production of the clothes, they also featured in the fundraising side of things.

"The young children of one farmer from Braidwood ... took their pet lamb to the saleyards to raise money for the soldier's vests," Ms Fletcher said.

"Of course it was auctioned over and over again. Nobody wanted that sheep and in the end the auctioneer gave the children back their lamb - and the eight pounds they'd raised."

'From the farm gate to the front'

And now that very tangible Anzac link between the bush and the battlefields of Europe is being celebrated with the production and sale of Diggers Vests in the lead-up to the Gallipoli Centenary.

The authors say it turned out to be a bit like the search for the Tasmanian Tiger.

"Could we bring this thing back to life in time for the Gallipoli Centenary and could we find someone who could accurately replicate the original sheepskin vests?" Mr Gillam said.

They are being manufactured by Mortels Sheepskins at Thornton in the Hunter Valley, and part of the proceeds will go to Defence Care, a charity that looks after defence personnel and their families.

Tony Mortel says he is honoured the family company is able to be part of such a memorable project and delighted that one of the vests has been presented to the Australian Army Infantry Museum at Singleton.

"It honours not only the efforts of our fighting men and women in the First World War, but the remarkable volunteer effort that stretched all the way from the farm gate to the front," he said.

- Watch Pete Lewis's full report "Stitch in Time" on Landline at midday on Sunday on ABC1.*
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