Stored.

I put Tru's good feet away today, the rope is so they don't float away in the next flood. Since I was never a scout or a sailor I had to do some checking online about fancy knots, I decided on a bowline as it appears most useful and one I should definitely learn and use.

While I'm at it.

Another Great Uncle another war. VX48125 Adrian John Smyth was my Father's Mother's brother, enlisted in WW2 in 1940 and was discharged 1n 1946, reaching the heady rank of private. After viewing his service photo shown here I can see why. He suffered from the same lack of tall bones as I do and thus could never expect to be promoted.
He did however manage to be a Rat of Tobruk before doing a stint in Borneo.

He was known as John as he probably wasn't tough enough to use Adrian but he had the luxury of growing old(ish) before dying, though he would have regretted doing that if he knew the shameful treatment his sisters would do to his de-facto wife.

Another tale.

4503 Lewis Cunningham Knox Rough 26th Battalion was the husband of my foster Nana, I called him Grandfather and he was good to me but I never saw him after I was 7 y/o, he died in 1969.
As near as I can tell he was wounded around Pozieres, a mere 20km or so from where Jack McGregor was killed. For Lew the war ended on the 29th July 1916 when he copped a bullet that ripped along his arm, trimming the bone savagely.
It was a different world back then and men were men and got on with their lives, he carried the legacy of a dud arm plus nightmares and a cigarette habit till he died at what is regarded as extreme old age for a smoker of 74.

He had the legacy of not being fit for full employment but was knocked back when he applied for a invalid pension 30 years later, due largely to not having made a fuss of the injury earlier. It was a different world alright.

I'm very pleased to see some service organisations trying to return the ANZAC day march to those who served, after it having become a free for all for too long.

An ANZAC tale.

I was doing a bit of checking out some of my family war service and now realise ANZAC day is coming up next Sunday, so a post isn't out of order.

My Mother's Mother's brother was killed in France on the 24th March 1917.
4881 John McGregor enlisted in the 57th Battalion on the 1st December 1915, his Mother had died 12 years earlier in childbirth when my Grandmother was born, the family was never well off and enlisting was probably the best thing that had ever happened to him. He was quickly promoted to Sergeant, which with his social position was probably as high as he could have achieved, and by accounts was a brave natural leader.
A member of his platoon was shot by a German sniper and Jack was shot in the head when he went to rescue him. Some sources have him shot by sniper, others have him being hit by a shell fragment, I believe the sniper to be the truer account.
His luck had run out as he was wounded previously on the 15th July 1916 with gunshot to the shoulder and back.
According to his Captain he had been recommended for a D.C.M prior to his death but I don't think my family ever heard anything of that, he did well enough to manage a promotion from his starting position in life.

Records of places are rather hard to research from online records but now once again I can thank Earth Google for letting us see the world. The photo shows the cemetery at Beaumetz-les-Cambrai in the Somme at France, however I believe it was a couple of km further down this road at the village of Doignies where he was killed, sorry but no street view available thus far, however I believe him to have been buried close to the big tree in the background. Later to be transferred to the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial.

The Tour de France pushbike race has a stage from the town of Cambrai this year and I shall take a bit of particular interest in that one.

RIP Meinhardt Raabe.

The coroner himself has died, there can't be too many left now from the great 1939 Wizard of Oz film.

To paraphrase him "He's not only merely dead, he's really most sincerely dead". At 98 he had a pretty good run.

Weakness.

I suppose you can call this a bit of a shamefile post but the young fella with the glow in the dark workshirt who jumped out of the 4wd then speared into Subway to buy his lunch, and didn't appear to have a disabled parking permit. The white car had a permit so is a cleanskin.

Most times it wouldn't cause much trouble and this probably wasn't an exception but to me it's a sign of society breakdown as more and more people think only of themselves, just have a look at a sports stadium sometime and see all the garbage strewn about the place, someone else has to pick it up. I think we may have much to learn from the Japanese, who do seem to consider others.

What a beauty!

I spotted this in Coles carpark the other day, a real nice looking FB Holden (1960-61) Probably my most desirable model they made, although now suffers from the same weakness the legendary Model T Ford had of age rendering them no longer suitable for a lot of road use.
When I was younger these were more common than the cane was at school. These days they're still more common than the cane at school, but only just.