Two Pennies

An old man sat with his daughter, his blue eyes twinkled as he opened a small wooden box and took out two pennies and placed them in her hand. ‘When I was a little boy, I raised money to help build a school in France. I have kept these pennies for you to take them to France and give them to the school for me.’

Eighty years earlier, just after World War 1, this little boy called George, who lived above his Mother and Father’s bakery in Albert Park, Melbourne, decided he wanted to make a difference.

So he woke up early to care for the horses that drew the carts that delivered the bread.

First, he led them from the stables, put their bridles over their necks and tethered them to the horse railing outside. Then he fed each of them a bucket of oats, so they would have full stomachs to do their day’s work.

After the horses had delivered the bread, George washed and brushed their coats so they were clean and shiny.

Soon he had earned his first two pennies to help build the school in Villers-Bretonneux which been flattened by war.

George was not alone, thousands of Victorian schoolchildren donated pennies. This initiative of the Victorian Department of Education became known as the Penny Drive.

The Victoria School, on the rue du Victoria in Villers-Bretonneux, was rebuild between 1923 and 1927. The school is a gift from the children of the State of Victoria, Australia, to the children of Villers-Bretonneux as proof of their love and goodwill towards France. Twelve hundred Australian soldiers, fathers and brothers of these children, gave their lives for the heroic recapture of the town in April 1918.

On the front of the school are two plaques, one in French and one in English, referring to this bond. In the quadrangle of the school, painted over a porch on a green background in yellow is written DO NOT FORGET AUSTRALIA. This inscription is also found in French in each classroom.

In 2012 I flew to France and found the little school in the village that my father had helped to build and gave the headmaster, Monsieur Hollinville, George’s treasured two pennies.

These two pennies are now proudly displayed in the French-Australian Museum in Villers-Bretonneux. They tell the story of a little boy who had a dream and made it come true.

A bond was forged between George and Villers-Bretonneux that was never broken.

Two Pennies is a powerful and poignant story about this little boy, my Dad, who, with courage, hope and perseverance, helped to build this school across the oceans.

This book is his story.

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