I’ve written a few things on and around Anzac Day over the years. This one was published last April in The Monthly. On one page in the small pile of my grandfather’s letters that survive from World War One, the handwriting changes entirely. Through the seasickness and the tense languor of troop transport, the waiting in Egypt, his time in Gallipoli and the early weeks in France and Belgium, his notes home – “Dear Mother … love, much of it, Harry” – are written in now-faded back ink with a steady, almost meticulous hand. The paper is yellowing, foxed a little here and there and ragged at its edges, but the words form ordered ranks, eight or 10 to the line.
Jonathan thank you for this thoughtful piece. As you suggest, it’s remarkable that you were even born given your great grandfather’s dice with death during the Great War. As I reflect on those who lived during that war, life seemed to be a game of chance. My great uncle fought and died in 1915 at Galliopi but his brother, my grandfather didn’t even enlist. I think his father may have pulled some strings to keep him at home. Perhaps that’s why I am here today and also considering the line of those before me, my father included along with all of his siblings who enlisted in the Second World War and returned to begin or continue raising their families. I visited the Lone Pine cemetery in 2016 and saw my great uncle’s name on the memorial wall and will visit my local cemetery and lay a bunch of rosemary on my father’s grave this Thursday. The Great War was meant to be the war to end all wars and yet here we are. Still fighting senseless and unnecessary wars. And families everywhere have to pick up the pieces and move on.
Jonathan thank you for this thoughtful piece. As you suggest, it’s remarkable that you were even born given your great grandfather’s dice with death during the Great War. As I reflect on those who lived during that war, life seemed to be a game of chance. My great uncle fought and died in 1915 at Galliopi but his brother, my grandfather didn’t even enlist. I think his father may have pulled some strings to keep him at home. Perhaps that’s why I am here today and also considering the line of those before me, my father included along with all of his siblings who enlisted in the Second World War and returned to begin or continue raising their families. I visited the Lone Pine cemetery in 2016 and saw my great uncle’s name on the memorial wall and will visit my local cemetery and lay a bunch of rosemary on my father’s grave this Thursday. The Great War was meant to be the war to end all wars and yet here we are. Still fighting senseless and unnecessary wars. And families everywhere have to pick up the pieces and move on.
A moving piece