Anzac Day 2019

This morning I was honoured, once again, to deliver an address at the Anzac Day ceremony in my hometown, Giru, North Queensland.  I will share it with you below.

‘AND SOME THERE BE, WHICH HAVE NO MEMORIAL;  WHO ARE PERISHED, AS THOUGH THEY HAD NEVER BEEN; AND ARE BECOME AS THOUGH THEY HAVE NEVER BEEN BORN; AND THEIR CHILDREN AFTER THEM.

BUT THESE WERE MERCIFUL MEN, WHOSE RIGHTEOUSNESS HATH NOT BEEN FORGOTTEN.  THEIR BODIES ARE BURIED IN PEACE, BUT THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE.  THE PEOPLE WILL TELL YOU OF THEIR WISDOM, AND THE CONGREGATION WILL SHEW FORTH THEIR PRAISES.’

MORE THAN 60000 AUSTRALIAN MEN NEVER RETURNED FROM THE GREAT WAR.  BARELY A FAMILY OR COMMUNITY WAS LEFT UNTOUCHED.  EVERYBODY HAD LOST SOMEBODY, AND NOT NECESSARILY A FAMILY MEMBER.  IN MANY CASES, OF COURSE IT WAS A FAMILY MEMBER – SOMETIMES, MORE THAN ONE BROTHER OR COUSINS.  IN OTHER CASES, IT WAS YOUR NEIGHBOUR, YOUR KIDS’ SCHOOL TEACHER OR GROCER’S SON WHO WERE KILLED.  EVERYONE KNEW SOMEONE WHO HAD LOST SOMEONE.  SOMEONE WAS MISSING FROM YOUR TOWN.

THE COUNTRY WAS GRIPPED BY GRIEF, BUT THERE WERE NO GRAVES.  THERE WAS NOWHERE TO GRIEVE. MEN WERE BURIED IN FARAWAY LANDS – OFTEN WHERE THEY FELL.

THE FIRST MEMORIALS BEGAN TO APPEAR SHORTLY AFTER THE GALLIPOLI LANDINGS.  THERE WERE MEMORIALS TO INDIVIDUALS, WHERE PEOPLE BOUGHT GATES OR A WINDOW IN THEIR CHURCH.  IT WAS NOT UNTIL AFTER THE CONCLUSION OF THE WAR, THAT COMMUNITIES SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED MEMORIALS FOR THEIR TOWNS.

THERE ARE 1500 MEMORIALS ACROSS AUSTRALIA, INCLUDING OUR OWN – SO MANY THAT AUSTRALIA HAS BEEN CALLED A “NATION OF SMALL-TOWN MEMORIALS”.  THERE WAS NO GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE.  EACH COMMUNITY FUND-RAISED FOR THE BUILDING OF THEIR OWN MEMORIAL.

EACH TOWN’S MEMORIAL REPRESENTED A SURROGATE GRAVE FOR EACH OF THOSE MEN LISTED BELOW THE YEARS 1914 TO 1918.  THEIR FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES WERE DEEPLY SCARRED BY LOSS.  PEOPLE NEEDED A PLACE TO VISIT, TO PLACE FLOWERS, TO HELP THEM GRIEVE.

OUR MEMORIALS HAVE NOW BECOME PLACES OF REMEMBRANCE FOR THOSE LOST DURING ALL WARS.

TODAY AS WE ARE GATHERED AROUND OUR OWN CENOTAPH, LET US REMEMBER THE MEN WHO WENT MISSING FROM OUR TOWN AS A RESULT OF BOTH WORLD WARS.

1914 – 1918

ROBERT LUXTON

1939 – 1945

TIMOTHY HAYES

JOHN BIRD

DOLAN O’NEILL

ERNEST BOLAM

FRANCIS HOCKING

FINDLAY MCLENNAN

WILLIAM DOUGLAS

JOHN HOOD

CHARLES GILBERT

LEST WE FORGET.

Monday Musings From The Writer’s Desk

Good Morning

I must apologise for my leave of absence, albeit unintended.  Sometimes, life gets in the way.

With Anzac Day looming, my mind is being drawn back to the job at hand.  It has a way of stirring up stories that have been remained hidden for year  One such story shook me out of my ‘writer’s block’ recently with a jolt.  It came in the form of a film called “Testament of Youth”, based on the autobiography by British writer, Vera Brittain.

From the moment war was declared in 1914, the lives of Vera, her brother Edward and his friends Roland Leighton, Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow, went from carefree to dire in a very short period.  Their studies at Oxford were curtailed as they all followed a path of bloody futility.

The boys enlisted in Officers’ School and were sent to France.  Vera opted out of her studies to volunteer as a nurse at a hospital in England.  When Roland Leighton returned home on leave, he and Vera became engaged and were to be married when he was next on leave.  Whilst waiting at the Town Hall in her wedding dress, Christmas 1915, she receives a phone call from Roland’s distraught mother who tells Vera he was killed in Italy.  She then volunteers for active service, to be close to her brother.

Whilst abroad, she nursed Edward back from the brink of death.  Meanwhile, her mother suffers a nervous breakdown and Vera is summoned home.  Shortly thereafter, news arrives of her brother’s death.  His friend Victor is then shot through the head and blinded.  Vera nurses him in England, only for him to suddenly succumb to his injuries.  By the end of the war Geoffrey Thurlow is also dead.

Following armistice,  Vera returns to her studies at Oxford, but her experiences greatly affect her ability to continue.  She suffers nightmares and visions of death.  She is also overwhelmed by guilt:  she had pleaded with her father to allow Edward to enlist.  Subsequently, she has a breakdown.

Watching the movie, it was very easy to be drawn into the story.  It had all the ingredients of great story telling:  romance, plenty of tension and an endless run of obstacles that hamper the heroine’s happiness.  The most harrowing aspect is that the characters were real people as were the events.  One questions ‘how much grief can one family, let alone one person bear?’

The collective grief of a nation was monumental.  Multiply that by the number of nations involved in a war, on both sides, and it is unfathomable.  It has been said that the Great War cost the world an entire generation.  Even those who survived were robbed of their youth, and that includes the nurses, doctors and ambulance bearers who battled under horrific conditions to save lives.  Sometimes, I think they were the forgotten soldiers.  They witnessed the results of the war.  How could they not be affected?

In the coming episodes of William’s story, I will be introducing you to my own family’s war nurse, Emily Deane, who served in Egypt from 1917 to 1918.  So, keep the cupboard doors open.