{"id":462418,"date":"2025-09-30T06:43:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T06:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/462418\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T06:43:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T06:43:17","slug":"stolen-wwii-ledger-returned-to-st-lukes-church-in-toowoomba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/462418\/","title":{"rendered":"Stolen WWII ledger returned to St Luke’s church in Toowoomba"},"content":{"rendered":"

An irreplaceable memorial book from St Luke’s Anglican Church in Toowoomba has been found a month after it was taken from the historic Warrior’s Chapel.<\/p>\n

The book, which contains handwritten records of locals who served during World War II,<\/a> sat in the church since 1941 until last month, when a <\/a>thief pilfered it from its display case<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The tale of its journey and eventual return to safety has left the community stunned.<\/p>\n

Last week parishioner John Standley, who led the campaign to recover the book, said he had all but lost hope of ever getting it back.<\/p>\n

Police charged a man over the incident, but the book remained missing until Dr Standley visited his local shopping centre to run an errand.<\/p>\n

“On the Thursday I came to the chemist to pick up a prescription, where I had a reception committee,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I thought to myself, ‘Now, what is the butcher doing in the chemist shop and why are all the staff looking at me?’<\/p>\n

“And then [the butcher] said, ‘Oh, I have a book here’ \u2014 and it turned out to be the memorial book.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The book had been on display for more than 80 years. (ABC Southern Qld: Aisling Brennan)<\/p>\n

As the story goes, the trolley collector at the shopping centre in Wilsonton, across town from St Luke’s, found the leather-bound tome sitting on a trolley under the escalators.<\/p>\n

“I noticed a big book, I had a look,” Scott Shaw said.<\/p>\n

“It looked like a bible, so I just left it there.<\/p>\n

“Then, an hour later or so, I thought I’d put it in the back of [the butcher’s] car.”<\/p>\n

It was the latest in a long series of practical jokes between Mr Shaw and butcher Cameron Shepherd.<\/p>\n

“I thought he could use a bit of Christ in his life,” Mr Shaw said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The leatherbound ledger was found on a shopping trolley. (ABC Southern Qld: Aisling Brennan)<\/p>\n

‘Over the moon’<\/p>\n

The memorial book spent about a week in Mr Shepherd’s ute tray until his wife spotted it.<\/p>\n

“She said to me, ‘I think this is important,’ and then I found the ‘St Luke’s’ on it,” Mr Shepherd said.<\/p>\n

“I was eventually going to give St Luke’s a ring, but I hadn’t \u2014 and then I ran into John the next morning.<\/p>\n

“That’s when he was over the moon that we’d found it.<\/p>\n

“It was good for the community and it was a bit of a funny story at the same time.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

John Standley shows the ledger to Scott Shaw and Cameron Shepherd. (ABC Southern Qld: Aisling Brennan)<\/p>\n

Dr Standley said the book was showing a few signs of its adventure.<\/p>\n

“The good news is that none of the writing has been defaced, and it’s in good condition,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Some of the blank pages have graffiti on them, but we can attend to that.”<\/p>\n

He said the book would be sent to an expert for cleaning before being returned to its place in the church.<\/p>\n

“The hope is that it can still go back into the original case,” Dr Standley said.<\/p>\n

“But somehow the back of the book will be clamped down into the case, so it’s not possible to take it out.”<\/p>\n

He said the church was committed to making sure the journey from the chapel to the trolley to the butcher’s ute would be the book’s last for quite some time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An irreplaceable memorial book from St Luke’s Anglican Church in Toowoomba has been found a month after it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[98118,3444,77,154789,79530,154787,16,15,154786,154788],"class_list":{"0":"post-462418","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-goodnews","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-funny-news-stories","12":"tag-offbeat","13":"tag-st-lukes-church-toowoomba","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wwii-honour-roll-toowoomba","17":"tag-wwii-ledger-stolen-toowoomba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115291895810459795","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}