Wyn Fountain served as a Welfare Officer in the Middle East and Europe and was away for over four years. Later he ran a very successful business in New Zealand and, with wife Shirley, grew a great family. At 90 years old (in this clip) he brought history alive.
My father-in-law Skippy fought in the Battle of Long Tan. This is the documentary made by Martin Walsh of that battle.
In 2015 Dad and I were at the dawn ceremony at ANZAC Cove and then the service at Chunuk Bair. I carried the medals of my great-grandfather Harry Crozier with me. It was 100 years since ANZAC troops set foot on the Gallipoli peninsula in that ill-fated campaign. Going to
This is my ANZAC Day tribute posting. ANZAC Day means a great deal for me and my family. I suppose it is because we have a connection to the original ANZACS in 1915 and Gallipoli, and to a veteran of a war much fresher in our minds, Vietnam. Firstly, I
Capitalist As we approach ANZAC Day for another year, and with yet another failed socialist government crashing around like a bull in a china shop destroying the living standards of the working man, it is important to note they are in good company – following a long, long Labour Party tradition.
In modern times, the world capitals of fashion are almost all in Europe: Milan, Paris, London. As it turns out, Europe as the hub of world fashion is not exactly new. Five thousand years ago, the fashion capital of the prehistoric world was also in Europe – at a site in
As H G Wells said, anyone who pines for the “Good Old Days” would change their mind as soon as they got their first toothache. They’d change their minds even faster if they fell afoul of the law – or at least the ruling classes. There’s a reason the
For most of the 20th century, Russia dominated world history. Then, at the end of the century, history supposedly ended and the Russian spectre apparently faded away. But now Russia is back in the news in the worst possible way. Just as suddenly, everyone has an opinion on Russia – usually
In his A Short History of Christianity, Geoffrey Blainey points out that, “by the standard of the times, his life is astonishingly documented”. A man of unremarkable background who only emerged from complete obscurity in the last years of his life, and even then, only in a backwater province of
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There’s a strange disease that seems to be transmitted by a modern university education: an almost reflexive, self-loathing of the Western and White. It’s not particularly new — Orwell, for instance, wrote about how “a derisive and mildly hostile attitude… is more or less compulsory, but it is an
I once saw a young man wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with Che Guevara’s iconic image. Which wouldn’t be at all memorable, were it not for what was written under the image: “Because my Hitler, Stalin and Mao t-shirts are in the wash”. Well played, young man: well played.
JM White On 5 June 1916 the HMS Hampshire – a Devonshire class armoured cruiser – was en route from Orkney to Archangel in Russia taking Lord Kitchener on a secret mission to bolster support for the Tsar, when it hit a mine and sank, west of Orkney, less than two miles
Makeha Paori Racism and hypocrisy are stepping up another level with the attack on voters in Rotorua. The value of a Pakeha vote will be reduced to 58% of a Maori vote. Ardern’s government is justifying this attack with unwritten “Treaty principles” about partnership. This is astonishing because Rotorua
Giles Gasper Durham University Giles Gasper’s main fields are in the history of medieval culture and religion: medieval science and natural phenomena; the making of medieval theology and the understanding of creation; monastic life; the influence of classical and patristic thinkers on later centuries; and medieval food and drink.
