The Everyday and Everyway Recipe Book, c. 1925 (Special Collections, Deakin University Library).
Thomas Holmes had a contentious message to deliver when he set up the Disabled Men’s Association of Australia in the mid-1920s. In the previous decade, thousands of men had returned from the First World War mentally and physically damaged, and they deserved assistance; but so did men who had been permanently incapacitated in civilian life, even though there was no glory attached to their wounds.
‘There is a society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, even Homes for stray cats and dogs. But for the man who has lost a limb, or otherwise become incapacitated by accident or disease, there has been no organisation to which he could turn for help towards earning a living,’ Holmes wrote in a small book published by the association to promote its work. ‘They may be Bruised Reeds, but they are not crushed, nor are they helpless.’