Discovering a secret stash of illustrated letters provides Phoebe Raye with a dramatic narrative of trench life from her father, Roderick, including comical tales of his beloved war horse on the Western Front.
Phoebe leant over to look at the letter Pim was reading.
Again it was illustrated with a border of caricatures mostly featuring the horse, this time shaving, dining, saluting the colonel and undertaking an assortment of jobs as if it were a man.
‘I don’t believe it!’ she cried.
‘What?’
‘When I was little my father used to tell me all sorts of silly stories about a horse called Gregory Allegri. It was his war horse he was telling me about, Pim! Lucy, it was the horse he rode in France!’
• Read more about Roderick Raye’s regiment at Ballarat to France – the Australian Light Horse 13th Regiment
For the full comic and dramatic story of the horse, you’ll have to read the book!
- ABC Lateline: Australian WWI war horse breed still being bred
- The horse’s namesake was of course Gregorio Allegri, the Italian composer whose most famous work was his “Miserere”.
The Story of Allegri’s Miserere: