ANZAC day

Today was ANZAC day.  I have attended Dawn services and watched the marches on various occasions in the past in both Brisbane and Sydney.  It is both a solemn and a happy time.  I am quite disabled at the moment so I could not participate this year.  I did however do something both special and mundane:  Joe and I went to Macdonald’s for brunch.  We in fact went to a local Macdonald’s that Joe has been visiting since he was 4.

It was special because I am so disabled at the moment.  Joe had to help me quite a lot to get there. I had to lean on his strong arm while walking. But it was a pleasant occasion and made a very welcome outing for me.  Since I cracked a rib, outings have been few and far between.  I am not bedbound but I am decidedly housebound.  Just the day before, Joe and I had had our usual Sunday breakfast at home to cope with my limitations

ANZAC day is a people’s day.  It marks the loss of thousands of ordinary men and women in the battles of WWI.  I myself did lose relatives in both WWI and WWII.  So it is a day on which we honour members of our own families:  Men and women who fought and died for “King and country” but who were really motivated by a wish to protect their own families.  It is Australia’s greatest national occasion.  

The “Courier Mail” has a splendid photo gallery of this year’s occasion in Brisbane. I particularly liked the photo below. It was presumably a re-enactment group who had gone to the trouble of donning the army uniforms of WWI:

And if you look at the gallery as a whole you will note the large number of Australian flags being displayed.  It is a day on which we are openly proud of our Australian identity.  The Left have always hated it but they have never been able to ding it.  A novel mocking ANZAC day was even prescribed for High School reading during my teens.  I remember it well: Alan Seymour’s “One day of the year”.  

The day could have been one for old men to celebrate their past but it is not.  Old Diggers do of course lead the celebrations but young people also turn out in droves for the occasion.  The Left have forced much upon us but the people at large have thwarted that attack.  As an ex-digger myself, I am glad of that.