PROMOTING THE HISTORY AND ARCHIVES OF MT COMPASS
Skewes, Cecil
Cecil John Skewes (Private)
Cecil was born at Parkside on 1st August 1894 to Samuel Richard Skewes and Sarah Elizabeth Skewes (nee Downton). He was one of 11 children born to this couple.
When his father was badly injured at work, the family decided to buy a 603 acre property along Cleland Gully Road. It was recorded that while at this property they milked 9 cows, kept pigs and grew vegetables. They lived there for about three years between 1907 and 1911, after which the family returned to Adelaide, with Cecil finding work as a labourer in Unley.
Cecil enlisted in 1915 at the age of 21.
His service records show that he was an unmarried labourer who was 5’7’’ tall, with a fresh complexion, blue eyes and light brown hair. Cecil was of the Church of Christ religion.
Cecil embarked for France on 2nd December 1915 with the 12th/10th (Infantry) Battalion Reinforcements.
One month before Cecil was badly injured, he wrote a letter to his friend Hugh Jacobs in which the following paragraph explained the situation at the front:
“They reckon a man has to be extra lucky to get through up here, every instrument of destruction science can create is being used. Gas is about the worst, but we have helmets which have been used very successfully, the gas being converted by chemicals in the helmet, to enable it to be breathed without harm. Then the tear shell which causes the eyes to run with water we are protected against – and have steel helmets for bullets etc so we are not badly off. I think we have the Germans a bit shy of us now, and it is only a question of time.”
In July of 1916 he was seriously injured when a bomb burst between his legs at Pozieres. He was evacuated to a hospital in England and from there was invalided back to Australia. Cecil was transported back as a “cot case needing constant supervision”.
A social was held in the Mt Compass Hall in December 1916 to welcome home Private Cecil Skewes, who had proudly left for the war only 12 months previously. A crowded Hall listened to speeches from Messrs Jacobs & Slater before Cecil spoke of his own experiences since leaving Australia. He was managing to walk with the aid of a stick by this time, but with shrapnel still in his leg. A song and games followed the formalities.
He was formally discharged in February 1917 and returned live on Nangkita Road (Section 332) where he had a small dairy and kept pigs as well as growing a small orchard.
In 1937 he married Barbara Allen Cuthbert and they adopted a boy, Andrew. In spite of his injury, which caused him difficulty all his life, he reportedly lived a good life. Cecil was Secretary of the local Church of Christ and a preacher at both Goolwa and Mt Compass. He was known for reciting poetry at family and district events but eventually, in around 1946, retired to Kadina.
Cecil died in 1968 aged 73 years, with his final residence listed as Edwardstown. He was cremated at Centennial Park, as was Barbara, his widow who died in 1995 at the age of 89.
References: Mt Compass Archive records, Army service records, trove.nla.gov.au, “A Guide Behind The Lines” by Richard Kleinig, Linton Jacobs.
