Lest We Forget

Karyn writes:

Seven years ago I was privileged to visit Gallipoli.  It was a quiet time - it wasn't ANZAC Day - in fact it was a cold November day and we only saw about eight other people (our daughter Lydia and me).  To this day I will take with me the stark reality of the sheer cliffs our brave young men faced - with heart and courage - and no doubt fear.  We will remember our wonderful Turkish guide telling us that we were the foreigners stepping on to their soil but yet he had been taught by his grandparents to respect us.

I will always think on the young corporal from Dunedin, unknown to me, at whose grave I knelt and to whom I paid my respects - respect intended indeed for all of the fallen.  We wondered on your life, your kin, their loss, your pain.  Our guide telling us you were not there, but somewhere across the vast expanse where so many lie.

We will remember the quiet beauty of that place - with its trees and ocean - and most startlingly - no birdsong - not one note.

To all that have given their lives - we owe you so much - and more.

Poppy & Pohutukawa

From Flanders fields where poppies grew;
The seeds of our young nation flew
Up from that blood-soaked foreign soil;
Borne on the winds of world turmoil
And settled halfway round the Earth;
To forge our nation at its birth.

And yet in Flanders poppies sigh
While our young men lie still nearby;
Who gave their lives that we may be
Forever safe, forever free;

In the land of the Pohutukawa tree
Since then in growing nationhood
Our warriors have proudly stood;
Many times in foreign lands
Cradling freedom in their hands;
On land, in sky and on the sea
Shaping our identity

And thus our history has been told
How will our future now unfold;
Should we be called in peace and war
To play our part as those before;
Whose memories rest in Tane's bowers
Of red Pohutukawa flowers.

Chris Mullane - Veteran

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Written by Lieutenant John McCrae, a Canadian medical officer who, in May 1915 had conducted the funeral service of a friend, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who had died in the Second Battle of Ypres (Ieper). Distressed at the death and suffering around him, McCrae scribbled the verse in his notebook. In a cemetery nearby, red poppies blew gently in the breeze - a symbol of regeneration and growth in a landscape of blood and destruction.

McCrae threw away the poem, but a fellow officer rescued it and sent it on to the English magazine Punch; 'In Flanders Fields' was published on 8 December 1915. Three years later, on 28 January 1918, McCrae was dead. As he lay dying, he is reported to have said ‘Tell them this, if ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep'.