Message by Bottle

À propos

In August 1916, a few days out from Adelaide on the troop ship HMAT Ballarat, two young Australian soldiers, Private Malcolm Neville and Private William Harley, wrote pencil letters home, sealed them in a bottle and tossed it into the sea. Malcolm told his mother the ship was heaving and rolling but they were "happy as Larry." William wrote that they were somewhere in the Bight. More than a century later, in October 2025, the Brown family found that bottle during one of their beach clean-ups on Wharton Beach near Esperance, Western Australia. Malcolm was killed in France in April 1917. His words finally made it home. I wrote this song about it. It's one of the most personal songs I've written, and it still moves me every time. A Granby group laid down the tracks for electric guitar, bass and drums, and my singer Greg, who I collaborate with on many tunes, sang the lead. When I shared the lyrics with Greg and his crew, they understood it right away. For Remembrance Day, 11 November 2026, I'm sharing "Message by Bottle" with the Esperance community, the RSL and the Australian War Memorial, and with folk radio in Australia and New Zealand, so the song can travel back to the shore where the letters landed. If it speaks to you, please pass it along, and Follow me here on Bandcamp to hear each new song as it's released. Lest we forget.