A photo of the grandparents of journalist Jean-Pierre Pernaut found in Australia and returned to Picardy

In 1912, it immortalized the wedding of the journalist’s grandparents, who died in 2022. An Australian soldier picked it up from the rubble of a house, vowing to return it to its owners. More than a century later, it’s done.

A photo of the grandparents of journalist Jean-Pierre Pernaut, who died in March 2022, was found in Australia and has just been returned to the Somme, reports France Bleu Picardie on Thursday June 13. The photo was taken in Albert, in the Somme, in 1912, during the wedding of the grandparents of the late star presenter of the TF1 news. During the First World War, an Australian soldier recovered the photo from the rubble of a house to return it to its owners.

After more than a century spent in Australia, the more than 100-year-old photograph has just made its return to Picardy, thanks to the determination of an Australian and the Somme 1916 Albert Museum. In the winter of 2023, Gill, a retired teacher, discovers this photo among the belongings of her grandfather, who fought in the Somme during the First World War. “This photo is of a wedding, we see around a hundred people there. My grandfather writes that he found the photo in 1916, in the rubble of a house in Albert, which had just been bombed”. The soldier carries the image in his bag, “by telling herself that she was important”.

“He vowed to send her away one day.”

Gill, the granddaughter of the Australian veteran

in France Bleu Picardie

Gill’s grandfather returned to Australia in 1919 with the photo. He resumes his activity as a farmer in his village. “We found a letter dating from 1960, addressed to the mayor of Albert, but never sent, in which he explains that he wanted to return this photo to its owners: but at the time, he was poor and did not have the means to send this mail But it was his dream, my mission was to make it come true.concludes Gill.

She sends an email to the Somme 1916 Museum in Albert, 15,000 km from Australia, which shares the photo on its networks. The Pernaut couple is finally identified thanks to the solidarity of Internet users.

A beautiful story that attracts “700,000 views, thousands of reactions… We love doing research at the museum and helping soldiers’ families”, testifies Blandine Chailland, who posted the photo on the museum’s Facebook account. In just a few hours, the institution managed to find the couple’s descendants. “It’s important to honor the wishes of the soldiers. We are very proud, we have come full circle”, finishes Blandine Chailland. The photo was returned to Nicole, the couple’s granddaughter and cousin of the journalist who died in 2022. She decided to offer it by drawing lots to a descendant of the Pernaut couple.