In November of 1915 the village of Dudley was probably best known for the mine explosion that had killed 15 men in 1898, the second worst mining tragedy in the country at the time. The mine was permanently closed in 1940 and Dudley is now just one of the southern seaside suburbs of Newcastle, and probably best known, from a footballing perspective, as the home town of Matilda’s veteran Emily van Egmond and Socceroo Ron Giles.
Being a coal town, Dudley has always been a football town and it is where Private Thomas Leslie Greener grew up, and it is where Thomas Snr, his father, was killed in 1912. ‘Les’ Greener was one of 20 members of the Dudley footballing community to sign up to serve their country. In total 93 former students of the local primary school went to war,19 per cent did not return. For a small community this is a very high rate.
Broadly speaking Greener was one of the lucky ones, but in the end the war did in fact kill him, as suffering the effects of mustard gas was given as his cause of death in 1943. Greener enlisted in Newcastle’s 35th Battalion of the AIF in November of 1915, and was posted to D Company. But he did not depart till almost a year later, his company being sent straight to the trenches of France. Greener received a gunshot wound to his right eye on May 9th and only 9 days later he rejoined his unit. A week after that ‘Les’ was hospitalised again, this time for shell shock. He spent the rest of June away from the action and the rest of the war in relative peace, returning home in May of 1919.
It is not noted where and when he came into contact with the gas but the effects, though not enough for him to be hospitalised in the field, were enough to cause him great suffering later in life. Private Greener returned home, became both a father and a husband in 1920 after marrying Charlestown girl Joan Frost.
Thomas Leslie Greener, Private with D Company of the 35th Battalion, died in the middle of WWII, the war that was never supposed to happen, especially after he had lived through the war to end all wars.