Message from Cairo: unique audio of original Anzac recorded during first world war speaks across the years

Henry Miller Lanser, a 24-year-old Australian soldier, found himself far from his family in Sydney at Christmas 1914.

His 1st Battalion had arrived in Egypt in early December for training at Mena military camp before deployment in the first months of the Great War.

At one point he checks with the technician that he has a minute left to finish his message.

Lanser says the family received the record before his uncle landed at Gallipoli, and continued to play it and find solace in hearing his voice after the news of his death.

Jennifer Selby is an assistant curator at the Australian War Memorial, who worked on the restoration of the disc.

By the time of the Vietnam war, technological advances made it easier to record audio tapes, which were sent back and forth from Australia and Vietnam.