Private George Irwin went missing at Gallipoli in August 1915. Last seen plunging into the Turkish trenches at Lone Pine, his body (like countless thousands of others) was never recovered from the carnage. His mother begins writing to the Red Cross in 1916:

Sarah Irwin continues to ‘hope’ ‘pray’ and imagine until the very end of the war:

Twelve years after his death, Private Irwin's parents finally made their way to Gallipoli. Their journey had taken them 12 000 miles from Australia, first to Britain, then to Italy and finally across the Mediterranean to Turkey. They travelled in the company of 300 others, a ‘mixed party’ of grieving parents and returning soldiers determined to walk ‘the hallowed ground’ of the Peninsula.