Friday, April 25

 Anzac Day, and we have no plans to do anything exciting. There will be a march and service in Longford and my Probus Club will lay a wreath but it's been a couple of years since we've been involved.  Years ago, I was asked to give the Anzac address at the march in Deloraine which was a distinct honour,  Their march is one of the biggest in the region and is always followed by a breakfast at the RSL club.  I can't remember what I said but I remember I mentioned Eric Bogle's song, The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.  

Even earlier than that, I remember marching down Crown Street in Wollongong in my scout uniform with my knobbly knees on display for all the world to see.  

It's rained overnight but the sun is struggling to break through the clouds and it should be okay for the marchers.

Marilyn's watching a Youtube video set in Ireland.  We often regret not visiting Europe when we were young and carefree but circumstances got in the way.  There's only so much you can do and we found that we were obliged to spend a lot of time in the Philippines and, with our limited budget, Europe was out of the question. I did manage to spend a couple of week in the UK but I was on my own, As Marilyn says, maybe in the next life. I found a story I' wrote a couple of years ago called Letter From the War; it may be appropriate on this day.

LETTER FROM THE WAR – March 13, 2020

Somewhere in France

April 1915

Dearest Janet,

I haven’t written to you since I left you all those weeks ago and you know I miss you terribly.  Still, there are lots of my pals from Burnbank here as well, so I have some familiar faces to remind me of home.  Jock Monroe had word last week that his mother was ill and he was given compassionate leave to go home to see her.  You know where she lives, in Carlyle Street, and maybe you could look in to see how she is getting on.  Jock hasn’t come back to the regiment yet so we don’t think everything is good there.

Well, you’ll not be surprised to hear that I’m now in France.  With a lot of the other men who worked in the pits, I’ve been attached to the Royal Engineers. The officers came looking for men who had been working in the mines so we thought that they’d be wanting us to dig trenches and tunnels and that’s what we’ve been doing for the past month, and dirty work it is too.  It’s been raining every day since we got here.  All the trenches have filled with water.  I’ve heard stories that wounded soldiers who couldn’t save themselves have drowned while waiting for help. 

All of us who thought we were coming on an adventure which would be all over by Christmas have learned exactly how awful war really is. We knew there was a chance that we might be wounded or killed by the Germans but nobody warned us that we would never have enough to eat and about the horrible weather and how hard it would be never being able to dry ourselves.  Many of my pals are suffering from trench-foot.  Our feet are always wet and, after a while, they start to get big sores on them and the smell when we take off our socks is terrible.  We haven’t had dry socks for weeks.

Now, I don’t want you to worry, but I’m in a Field Hospital in France. I have a head wound but it’s not  serious, and the doctors tell me I’ll be alright after a rest.  All our letters are being looked at so I’m not sure how much I can tell you but I was with a small gang whose job it was to tunnel  under the German trenches, lay some explosives, crawl back and set off the bomb.  Maybe we weren’t quiet enough, but something alerted the Germans and one of them had the bright idea of sending some poison gas back down our tunnel.  Luckily, we were able to scramble back quick enough to reach fresh air and we only lost one man.  You remember Geordie Murray whose father had the butcher’s shop.  He was always clumsy and he couldn’t move his big feet fast enough.  I lost my helmet, bumped my head in the tunnel and needed a bandage.

The doctors tell me that I’ll be back to the regiment after a few days but because of the gas I’ll probably have lost my sense of smell.  Oh, well, that’s not such a bad thing and at least I won’t have to put up with the smell of the rotting feet.

Give wee Jenny  a kiss for me.  Your loving husband,

Sanny