I didn’t get the medals out this ANZAC Day. They belonged to my grandfather who served in
France during World War 1. In particular, he was in the Battle of the Somme, a slaughter
where hundreds of thousands died including 6800 Australians. At times his voice seemed
inside those medals. A voice that spoke of happier memories such as marching and singing
(‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’), exchanging fruit with German soldiers during breaks in the
fighting and a dalliance with a woman in Paris. He had other memories. The terror of
donkeys forced to pull ammunition carts, bodies of German soldiers bloated in the sun,
endless mud, silence of a landscape without birds and a terrifying period of hand to hand
combat. How he became the man who cared for his grandson when I was sick and walked me
through his rows of tomato plants I’ll never know. In my first book the short fiction piece
‘ANZAC Day’ draws on some of the stories he told me. So in a way he lives on through
those pages and his medals.