Episode 4 - The Long Shadow: Family, Memory, and the Next Generation

This episode follows the war home, tracing how the consequences of underground service shaped not only Alphonsus (Albert) Joseph Edwards’ life, but the lives of his wife, children, and the generation that followed. Framed through a family photograph from the early 1930s, it shifts the focus from battlefield to household, from explosions and gas to illness, endurance, and memory.

The episode begins with Albert in the years after the war: physically weakened by mustard gas, struggling to breathe, and slowly losing the capacity to work. Around him, a family takes shape under the quiet strain of permanent injury. His wife, Elsie Agnes Austin, emerges as a central figure - her own life marked by childhood poverty, institutionalisation, and loss in industrial England before she ever met an Australian soldier. Her resilience, forged long before the war, becomes the foundation on which the Edwards family survives.

Listeners follow Elsie’s journey from the Birmingham poorhouse system to employment at Cadbury’s, her marriage to Alphonsus in the aftermath of war, and her decision to leave England for Australia as a war bride. In the 1920s, the family builds a modest but stable life, raising six children while coping with Albert’s declining health. The episode makes clear that mustard gas did not end with the armistice - it lingered in damaged lungs, recurring infections, and a body worn down year by year.

The arrival of the Great Depression intensifies these pressures. With limited income, a sick husband, and a large family, Elsie becomes the anchor of the household, managing scarcity and maintaining dignity under extraordinary strain. Albert’s death in 1933, at just 39 years old, marks the delayed final toll of the war. Official recognition of his death as war-related underscores a central theme of the episode: that modern warfare continues killing long after the fighting stops.

From loss, the story moves to remembrance and continuity. Covering the Hill 60 Tunnellers’ Memorial, the episode reflects on those who died instantly underground and those, like Albert, whose deaths came later and more quietly. The memorial becomes a symbol not only of sacrifice, but of the families who carried that sacrifice forward.

The final section turns to the next generation. Albert’s son, Bernard Leslie Edwards, enlists in the Second World War, not out of romanticism, but from a sense of duty shaped by what he witnessed at home. Serving with RAF Bomber Command, Bernard survives, returns to Australia, and builds a life of service in peacetime - embodying continuity rather than closure.

The Long Shadow closes the series by widening its lens. It argues that the true history of war is not only found in battles and medals, but in families shaped by illness, resilience, obligation, and memory. The Edwards family’s story becomes a case study in how service echoes across generations, reminding us that the freedoms of the present rest on sacrifices that extended far beyond the battlefield and long after the guns fell silent.