Added to our collection ‘From the Honest History Archives: five April takes on Anzac and Anzackery‘ is the 2014 Anzac Day address at Wallendbeen by Genevieve Jacobs, local resident, ABC Canberra presenter and host of the regular Honest History spot (now entering its third year). Ms Jacobs makes a case for low-key, respectful, thoughtful commemoration which takes account of the suffering of recent veterans as much as it tries to remember the stories of earlier generations.
8 April 2016
Wallendbeen war memorial c. 1920s (AWM H17884)
(Today’s date is coincidentally the birthday of my grandmother, Wilhelmina Esther Ferrier, born 1886, who lost a brother and a brother-in-law at Gallipoli and a son in the RAF somewhere in Northern India in World War II. We of a certain generation have all got war histories; these histories sit more comfortably with the quiet Wallendbeen style of commemoration than with light-shows, massed flags, political speeches, and wide-eyed children being coached to appropriate levels of ‘reverence’. DS)