A WATCH that was left in Weymouth by an Australian soldier during the First World War will finally be returned to his family Down Under.

Herbert Robert Lack, known as Robert, gave his watch to a young woman in a Weymouth general store in lieu of payment for food.

Elsie Hills, 17 at the time, had struck up a friendship with the soldier, who was stationed at the Wyke Regis Army Camp in Weymouth.

After Robert Lack left Weymouth, she continued to look at the pocket watch every day. She never married.

After Elsie’s death in the 1980s she passed the watch on to family friend June Taylor.

June, of Osmington Mills, near Weymouth, has finally been able to track down the relatives of Robert Lock in Brisbane, Australia, and will return the watch to them.

She said: “It’s hard to believe this watch has been in Weymouth for 100 years.

“Elsie kept the watch until she died and would keep taking it out to look at it. Whether she had a feeling the soldier would come back for his watch I don’t know. She never married and she always kept this little watch on her dressing table and a tea cosy over it.

“She would keep pulling the tea cosy off and looking at it.

“Elsie died in the 1980s and left the watch to me.”

June always intended to begin a search for Robert’s family but had to put it on the backburner when family members became ill.

It was accidentally given away to a charity shop when the family had a clear-out.

“I went back to the sales room in Crewkerne and managed to find the chap who bought the watch and buy it back,” June said.

She then enlisted her son-in-law Neil Guild to help her.

Through researching Robert Lack’s family tree online, Neil found his surviving family who still live in Queensland, Australia.

Robert was originally from the UK and emigrated to Australia in 1912, returning to fight in the war.

He survived the First World War and married a woman from Southampton, Constance Denner, on January 29 1919.

In the same year Robert was awarded the Military Cross and he and his wife moved to Australia.

They lived in Queensland and Robert died in 1951.

Neil made contact with Robert’s granddaughter over email, who was delighted to hear her granddad’s watch would be returned.

The watch has an inscription that says ‘To Robert Lack, from his Broadway friends, Brisbane, Queensland, 1915.’ A 2008 photo in the Echo’s Looking Back played a part in sparking June’s search for the soldier’s relatives.

It featured an old photo of Elsie, her brother and her mother, who ran a general store in Franklin Road, Weymouth.

They opened a back room where they would serve the Australian and New Zealand soldiers food and would make them cups of tea.

June said: “It was believed that Robert had no money to pay for food one day and left the watch. Elsie was only 17 at the time and her mother was very strict with her.

“She kept that little watch by her side.”

After her mother and brother died Elsie continued to run the store until the 1970s. She eventually retired and moved to Preston, Weymouth, where she lived in a bungalow.

June recalls: “We were very friendly with Elsie and I went round there every day to see how she was.

“Every day she would look at this little watch. She never spoke about the soldier but she would always give a little smile when she pulled it out.”

June says sending the watch back is a satisfying end to a story of a soldier and the teenager’s unrequited love for him that never went away.

She said: “I’m so pleased I’ll be saying ‘bon voyage’ to the little watch and it’s going back to where it belongs.

“I couldn’t have done it without help because I don’t use the internet and it’s thanks to all this technology that we’ve been able to find Robert’s family.

“It’s remarkable that we were able to find out what happened to him. Up until recently we didn’t even know if he survived the war.

“I’m so relieved that we’ve been able to track the family down.

“I’ve wanted to send it back for so long. The years just go by and it’s hard to believe it’s been 100 years since the watch was left in Weymouth in that little shop.

“As a soldier Robert would have been much older than Elsie and in her head she seemed to have built up an imaginary picture of what he was like.

“As a family they never went on holiday and Elsie lived a sheltered life but she never forgot the soldier.

“Even when she was elderly she was very young at heart. She was a smashing lady.”

n Looking Back will be updating readers on the story of the soldier’s watch when it reaches his family in Australia.