Ray Hasler was a 13-year-old Braidwood Scout when he attended the official planting of the Lone Pine with other scouts in Canberra.

In the battle for Lone Pine Ridge in Turkey during the Gallipoli campaign early August 1915, thousands of soldiers were killed. After the capture of the Ridge, an Australian soldier collected a pine cone from the branches that were used to cover the Turkish trenches and sent it home to his mother to plant.

A seedling from this was ceremoniously planted by Prince Henry, the Duke of Gloucester, in Canberra in 1934. It was planted near the site of what was to become the Australian War Memorial in memory of those who fell during the Battle of Lone Pine.

When staff at the Australian War Memorial discovered only last year that Ray had witnessed this 75 years earlier, they presented him with a seedling grown from the magnificent tree. Ray has now donating this seedling to Braidwood.