I have just watched the funeral of Prince Philip. There was something so different, so sad and so moving that I felt the need to put it into words. To witness the passing of this great Naval Officer and servant of the People was and will become one of those moments in history where, as Shaydee wrote some time ago, we record our snapshots of momentous occasions and our brains realise that something momentous just occurred. 

Today, we watched the passing of the old guard. The handing over of our future to a group of people who have never learned that, without respect for the past,  we will be given a future that none of us could ever have imagined or ever wanted.

It is a future that fills me with dread.

I looked at the image of The Queen, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, sitting alone and isolated, wearing a black Covid mask and bowed in sorrow as she bade farewell to her beloved husband and friend of 73 years. 

Unable to hold the hand of her daughter or son or grandson. 

She had to make the painful decision to deny her husband's wishes and request that the men wear suits instead of his wish that they wear their military uniforms. All because Harry and Andrew had stepped out of line and besmirched the dignity of their family, their duty and their country.  Worse still, they let their mother and grandmother down. 

As is so often played out these days, the mistakes of the few result in the punishment of all. 

Have we not seen this in the recent condemnation of our Australian soldiers? 

Where accusations are thrown like mud and it sticks to all?

I read that people are having to register to participate in our ANZAC marches on April 25th. The number of those registering is low - no doubt because our military and their families find it insulting that they have to register to march for our boys and girls, yet moslems can head off to Ramadan or Mosque worship and not an eyebrow is lifted. Black Lives Matter protesters, petulant children protesting climate change can glue themselves to our roads and disrupt our lives without sanction,; yet ANZAC Day is targeted? 

What has happened to us? How did we allow this to happen?

I read a story about a chained dog. Every day, someone removed a link in the chain. The dog did not notice, until, one day, it realised it could not move at all, so short was its chain.

I fear that this is where we are at right now. 

When I was a child back in New Zealand back in the 1960s, we had a Memorial Gate at our local footie field.

We also had an ANZAC plot at our school. Each soldier who had died in the First World War got a tree planted and a plaque at the base of " his " tree.

For a small rural community, there were about 30 trees, which is so sad when you think about it.

Each was a native timber, like rimu, or totara, or other New Zealand native. Our headmaster set aside an afternoon every month for the kids in the senior school ( so we would have been about 9 - 12 years old ) to go to the plot and be responsible for the clearing and cleaning of a plaque.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance

Over the months and years I cleared those plaques, I read their names and developed a deep respect for those that, as my headmaster used to tell us, " can no longer be here to watch the tree grow, but have need to rely upon others because the tree of HIS life can no longer grow. "

That is what creates patriots. That is what creates respect and a deep love of history, of family and of life in general. I returned to the school after many decades of absence and part of my tour of my school involved a trip to the plot dedicated to those young men. Somehow, I was reassured when I saw that the plaques were still neatly tended and the tradition of respect had been passed on to a new generation of children.

Without teaching our children to honour The Past, how can we create a Present that will give us hope for an optimistic Future?

While we allow the petulant and spoiled children to rage and throw tantrums; while we allow the angry youth who grew up without a solid understanding of history to dictate what happens in Government Policy; while we allow corrupt and self serving Politicians and bureaucrats to change our laws and societies to fill their ever bulging pockets; while we ALLOW our Queen to sit alone in mourning while others run rampant in defiance of our so called laws, all because it is " racist " to object; while we ALLOW the theft of elections and the theft of our ways of life and culture; all I can say is 

NO. NO. A THOUSAND TIMES NO.

Those that can no longer be here to watch their tree grow are relying on us to make sure that the seeds of their sacrifices are sown and broadcast widely. We need to tend that seed of sacrifice and nurture it. Teach our young ones to tend their fields and gardens, their monuments and their stories.

Now is the time to stand up, stand tall and fight for our past, fight for our present or be forever condemned to a future of a tethered chain where all our links from our past have been slowly but surely removed and from which there will be no escape.

Lest We Forget.