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• Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty

  Audio

  This song, in which a series of soldiers yearn to return to ‘Blighty’, or Britain, was hugely popular in 1917.

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• Every Girl is a Fisher Girl

  Audio

  This rousing music hall song by Australian-born Florrie Forde, popular during WW1, suggests that every girl is ‘fishing for a mate’.

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• New furs from Georges

  Video

  While a bitter war raged on the other side of the world, some wealthy Melbourne residents carried on with their lives just as usual. This 1915 newsreel item shows women modelling expensive fur coats, stoles, muffs and hats for Georges Department Store in Collins Street, Melbourne. Georges was a 'favoured spot with most of the smartest people in Melbourne'. The furs shown here would have been beyond the reach of most Melbourne residents at that time. As the war progressed, public condemnation of excessive or wasteful fashion became more prominent in the press.

  Originally silent, this footage has had the 1911 song Every Girl is a Fisher Girl added.

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