General News
25 April, 2025
Store front captures Anzac history
In the lead up to Anzac Day, a quiet but powerful tribute in an Avoca shop front has become a place for locals to pause, reflect and remember.
For almost all special occasions throughout the year, Grant Richardson has marked each event with a display in the front end of Avoca’s Albion House Country Store.
While most of the building is now a private residence, he didn’t want the front to appear empty.
Mr Richardson’s Anzac Day displays have previously consisted of his own uniform from the Vietnam War.
“Most of them were donated. I had half of my original Vietnam uniform, and I had my father’s Second World War airforce uniform, and that is what I used to use in the windows,” he said.
After locals saw these displays, their own donations followed.
“There were more and more just from word of mouth, people have approached me and said ‘we heard you collect uniforms’,” Mr Richard-son said.
However, this year’s display became one of his biggest projects yet, consisting of 1385 hand made poppies sent from interstate.
“My sister in New South Wales rang me, she had friends who wanted to make poppies and I thought maybe there would be one to two hundred, but there are over a thousand,” he said.
These poppies have made their way down from as far away as Penrith NSW and even Ipswich, Queensland.
“She said there were more coming, but she never said how many,” Mr Richardson said.
The display consists of ceremonial and formal uniforms from both World Wars, as well as service dress.
Other items such as hats and flags are also arranged with the handmade poppies scattered throughout.
This includes white poppies to symbolise the lives of civilians lost and purple poppies to connotate the lives of animals lost.
“What amazes me is they are all different, all handmade, and they are a multitude of hues of different shades of red, maroon and scarlett. Same with the purple ones and even the whites,” Mr Richardson said.
“That’s what makes them so interesting, the fact that they are not all the same.
“One lady made the wreath in the middle, who didn’t knit or crochet, but she could make a wreath, and it could be made out of egg cartons, but to look at it, you would never know, it’s amazing.”
Mr Richardson said people may not realise he can hear behind the glass as onlookers admire his display.
Yet their enthusiasm surprises him.
“It’s amazing how many people stop and take photos, it’s a bit surprising seeing the amount of people that stop and look,” he said.
“They don’t realise I can hear them talking, saying ‘look at this, my dad had one of those’, you get a lot of that.”
“I appreciate the community’s interest, people do comment, I get texts from locals saying ‘great job Grant.’ but this is just something I do.”
But Mr Richardson insists credit really belongs to the women who contributed to the display.
“What my sister and her friends have done is far more important than what I do, the fact that there are all of these women that don’t know me, but they have gone to all of this trouble,” he said.
The display will remain in the window in the coming weeks, until Mr Richardson has decided on a new theme.
