One Of Terry's Corners Of the Online World

I had an odd moment yesterday talking with my Mum on the phone from Sydney. While we were talking about ANZAC Day she mentioned her uncle, Cliff Jenkins who died in Europe during World War I and whose body was never found.

Due to the fractured nature of my family, I had never heard about Cliff until now. There's a lot of oral history there to be preserved. Mum's recovering from an operation now and I've asked her to start writing it down. My sister Linda has asked her before and she didn't do it, so I've decided that next time I'm up in Sydney I'll bring the laptop and my podcasting mike and mixer, sit down with her, give her a couple of shandies and record it. I'll transcribe it and burn it to disk and give it to everyone in my family who wants a copy. I'll also upload it to archive.org at some stage to preserve it. It's a self-imposed obligation because in old-school talk, I'm now the patriarch of the family and I want to leave something to those I love.

But I'll leave you, as I did last year, with the words of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who lead the Turkish "enemy" at Gallipoli. In 1934, as President of Turkey he spoke these words, which are now on the War Memorial in Canberra:

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 now here in this country of ours... you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land. They have become our sons as well.

I'm still awed by that speech. There is such power and compassion and humanity in it. Based in reality and direct experience of war, it resonates and has an evocative impact that no religious narrative based in Iron Age superstition, can ever possess.