Yesterday was ANZAC day, and as I watched the moving, live coverage of the ceremonies at Canberra and at Gallipoli -- this year to mark exactly 100 years to the day and hour that our boys landed on the beaches of Gallipoli, only to be mown down -- I thought again of my Grandfather, my mother's father, who fought in Gallipoli. Bruce, 23.
He was a smallholder in New Zealand, born and bred there, plucked from his life and sent off to fight a distant war in a distant land. He was wounded by shrapnel, seriously enough that he could not be mended and sent back to the trenches, and was, instead sent home. (He kept that piece of shrapnel, though I suspect it's now lost).
That was his one and only time he went overseas in his long life -- he died in 1989 aged 97.
I only met him once, in 1985, when he was already old. I was with my elder daughter, then eight. When first met him, he was sat in his favourite chair, the late afternoon North Island sun shining through the window behind him. He was so old that his ear lobes had grown longer and thinner, and the sun shone through them. It was the first thing my daughter noticed and she said to me "Dad, why is his ear transparent?". Luckily Granddad's hearing was not the best so he didn't catch her wonder, but if he had, he'd have smiled, no doubt, for he had a sense of humour.
I'd asked my mother what I should take to him, and she suggested a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label Scotch.
When I presented the bottle to him he said "Lovely, thank you. The only problem is that when I drink a few glasses of this, I fall over!". I said "I know the feeling, Granddad!".
There's a nice celebration of the ANZAC spirit, of Gallipoli, here at Harry's Place.
Note in particular the very moving, poetic thoughts of Ataturk -- the commander of the Ottoman Turkish troops at Gallipoli and the founding father of the Turkish Republic -- his "words of reconciliation", speaking of the Anzacs, and other allied troops (British, Canadian, Irish, Nepali amongst them) who were not as fortunate as my grandfather:
And a link to a lovely 1988 Anzac Dawn Service Address by the wonderful Clive James here.
By the way, I thought NZ PM Key's speech was sweet and poetic.
Our own Australian PM, Tony Abbot, spoke well, but at rather too much length, with details I think most could have done without. (summary here).
It was Key who ended by saying:
He was a smallholder in New Zealand, born and bred there, plucked from his life and sent off to fight a distant war in a distant land. He was wounded by shrapnel, seriously enough that he could not be mended and sent back to the trenches, and was, instead sent home. (He kept that piece of shrapnel, though I suspect it's now lost).
That was his one and only time he went overseas in his long life -- he died in 1989 aged 97.
I only met him once, in 1985, when he was already old. I was with my elder daughter, then eight. When first met him, he was sat in his favourite chair, the late afternoon North Island sun shining through the window behind him. He was so old that his ear lobes had grown longer and thinner, and the sun shone through them. It was the first thing my daughter noticed and she said to me "Dad, why is his ear transparent?". Luckily Granddad's hearing was not the best so he didn't catch her wonder, but if he had, he'd have smiled, no doubt, for he had a sense of humour.
I'd asked my mother what I should take to him, and she suggested a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label Scotch.
When I presented the bottle to him he said "Lovely, thank you. The only problem is that when I drink a few glasses of this, I fall over!". I said "I know the feeling, Granddad!".
There's a nice celebration of the ANZAC spirit, of Gallipoli, here at Harry's Place.
Note in particular the very moving, poetic thoughts of Ataturk -- the commander of the Ottoman Turkish troops at Gallipoli and the founding father of the Turkish Republic -- his "words of reconciliation", speaking of the Anzacs, and other allied troops (British, Canadian, Irish, Nepali amongst them) who were not as fortunate as my grandfather:
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives. You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours.. You the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now living in our bosom and are in peace. Having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.What a pity the modern Turkish state, as it drifts ever more to Islamism, doesn't have the openness of heart, the compassion of Ataturk. Today, Erdogan's Turkey would view the Anzacs as infidels, to be reviled, never to be its "sons as well".
And a link to a lovely 1988 Anzac Dawn Service Address by the wonderful Clive James here.
By the way, I thought NZ PM Key's speech was sweet and poetic.
Our own Australian PM, Tony Abbot, spoke well, but at rather too much length, with details I think most could have done without. (summary here).
It was Key who ended by saying:
Usually at these commemorations we conclude by saying “‘Lest we Forget”.
But today, witnessed by all of you who have gathered here out of respect and remembrance, I will not say “Lest we forget”.
Because after one hundred years we can say, on this day
April 25, Two Thousand and 15,
“We remember”.
