Private George Giles had just fought in the battle of Morlancourt in July 1918 when a tall, thin man in glasses approached and asked if he could have his uniform and kit.

When Ethel Freeth was told that her son, Flight Sergeant John Freeth, had been killed during the Second World War, she refused to believe it.

The Australian War Memorial has a huge collection of items on paper encompassing Australia’s wartime experience from the Boer War to the present day.