A NEW book telling the story of Penshurst’s Mervyn ‘Napier’ Waller OBE CMG (1893-1972) and his greatest work, including the mosaics he designed in the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial, is now available.

Written by journalist and author, Jan William Smith, and released last month by Big Sky Publishing, the book ‘The Glass Cricket Ball’ gets its name from one of the 15 windows designed by Mr Waller for the Hall of Memory called ‘Ancestry’.

The window is a depiction of recreation in Australia and shows a naval gunner with an anti-flash helmet clutching a naval shell, with a wreath and three cricket stumps with the bails intact, accompanied by a shiny red cricket ball sitting above his head.

While Mr Smith said although the book is not a biography, it does tell the story of Mr Waller, a prominent artist who was born and raised in Penshurst before moving to Melbourne at the age of 20 to study art, and enlisting in the war in 1915, where he then served on the Western Front.

Tragically, Mr Waller had his right arm amputated after suffering a life-threatening wound at the Battle of Bullecourt in WWI in 1917.

With his painting arm gone, Mr Waller trained himself to make art with his left arm, disregarding his disability and saying a man could learn to draw with his feet if he wanted to.

Now Mr Waller’s murals are notably plastered around some of Melbourne’s finest institutions including the University of Melbourne, the Melbourne Town Hall, and the Hall of Memory in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

Mr Smith became interested in Mr Waller’s story after working as a volunteer at the Australian War Memorial for 23 years, where he would give visitors tours and tell them war facts.

During his tours, Mr Smith realised there was not much information available about the life and works of Mr Waller, so he sought to change that by writing a book.

“A million people a year go to the Canberra war memorial and one thing that was always missing was a decent story of Napier Waller and his origins, where he came from, and a bit about his life,” he said.

“I thought, this fella hasn’t been given a very wide exposure and I heard that he had taken his notebook to the Western Front.”

While transcribing Mr Waller’s notebook, Mr Smith was struck by the descriptions of the war and the outlook Mr Waller took, somehow finding beauty in what was a very dark and tragic time.

“He had a fascinating description of the war, which funnily enough didn’t concern Waller as a war, he saw it as an experience,” he said.

“He looked at the beauty of the surroundings … he made curious notes, artistic notes - because all the time he was making sketches.”

Mr Smith reiterated that he is not a military or art historian, but was drawn to write the book to provide people with more information about the life of a great artist.

“The way I treated this was more in the way of a memoir about a person, namely me, who seeks to find out what sort of a person Waller was,” he said.

When completing his research for the book, Mr Smith visited the places prominent in Mr Waller’s life, including his hometown of Penshurst where he spoke with many helpful locals who shared stories about Mr Waller.

During his travels, Mr Smith also visited Port Fairy where he found a sketch of an army tank featuring Mr Waller’s signature proudly on display in an RSL building.

Despite only having one arm, Waller was actively involved in the construction of the stained-glass windows that encircle The Hall of Memory and make up one of the largest mosaics in the world, spanning the distance of five tennis courts.

Mr Smith said WWII posed problems for the creation of Mr Waller’s mosaics as he couldn’t get the materials he wanted from Italy, however, the mosaics were completed and now form a significant part of the Australian War Memorial, surrounding the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier.

“It has turned out to be a very appropriate design, it’s one of the biggest mosaics in the world,” he said.

“It looks like something out of Hollywood.

“(They worked) without knowing (that) what they were building and designing was a tomb that is visited by everyone.”

Locals wanting to delve deeper into the talents of Mr Waller can find 24 of his prints and paintings on display at the Hamilton Gallery, where they were donated by his sister, Heather Waller.