All About Honour

                                                       All About Honour            October 2015

      Honour, in confusion and despair, has sadly unfurled it's scrolls and flown from the conscious core of many humans who longer recognise respect, dignity, loyalty, ethics, morals, patriotism, creeds, customs and commitment.
      My first memories of honour are of school children carrying the New Zealand flag through each classroom before Anzac Day. We all contributed our pennies and received a picture of a poppy. Honour, respect and remembrance of our fighting, fallen fore fathers is still a powerful image.
      I once stood on the ruins of Troy holding a handful of real red poppies and contemplating the distant Dardanelles. The monolithic monument maintained by Turkey, at Gallipoli, visited previously by myself, was visible across the Straits – starkly white and lit at night. I had been a reluctant visitor, even in previous pre-tourist days. As we travelled down the peaceful peninsula, through serene, sun-warmed fishing villages, with men mending nets amongst their bright boats and ancient groves of gnarled olives and grapevines. I paused to ponder – what were we doing here, invading this timeless, tranquil place?
       As the world now knows, there was no honour in that tragic, misjudged catastrophe, not for anyone. All honour now goes to the Turkish people who respectfully maintain the Gallipoli Graves and memorial museum.
      My uncle, born and raised in Palmerston North, answered the King and Country call in World War II. He was a surf lifesaver at Foxton beach, tall, well built, blonde, blue-eyed – fluent German speaker – Hitler would have loved him. So did the New Zealand army who chose my uncle to be their recruitment poster boy. I believed this story to be a fragment of my dear, doting Grandmother’s imagination, But her smart son, indeed been taught as a child, to speak German by his German grandmother, and rewarded with pocket money.
       He later swam into the Mediterranean Sea off Egypt, while stationed there, and rescued a downed Luftwaffe pilot from drowning. This story, published in the Wellington “Dominion” stated that my uncle had reassured the German pilot, in his own familiar language, gained his confidence and obtained valuable information for the British forces. People of Palmerston North were not proud of the local hero, however; the family business was promptly shunned and bankrupted. Irony, or honour, or unfavourable reasoning? I wonder.
       There was a poignant sequel to the saga when I was sorting my Grandmother’s life-time possessions before she came to live with me. On top of her wardrobe were the two yellowed old posters. I carefully unrolled them revealing in full colour, complete with army slogans, two recognizable images of my young uncle, standing to attention in full uniform in one poster, astride a magnificent motorcycle, with  leather-gloved hand raised in salute, in the other.
      Family honour was satisfied at last!