“This lack of confidence in the authorities arises principally from the fact that every man knows that the last operations were grossly bungled by the general staff, and that Hamilton has led a series of armies into a series of cul-de-sacs. You would hardly believe the evidence with your own eyes at Suvla. You would refuse to believe that these men were really British soldiers. So badly shaken are they by their miserable defeats and surroundings, so physically affected are they by the lack of water and the monotony of salt beef and rice, that they show an atrophy of mind and body that is appalling.” 
Keith Murdoch 1915
 
The Summoning Begins tells the Gallipoli story of young men from a single Public School at Woonona in the city of Wollongong on the beautiful  Illawarra coast of New South Wales. 
 
The author Dan Michael Meehan, himself a former student of this school, paints a graphic image of young men and wasted lives. He pulls no punches.  
 
It is not all doom and gloom as there is a theme here, a theme of bringing home the spirit of his great uncle Stan Meehan.  He does this with some remarkable coincidences and to quote his Irish cousin Paula Halcrow, “It’s our ancestors that are playing a part in this story Our Dan, them and God Almighty Himself!”