Joanne Fisher from the Flowers of Peace was asked by the Brunswick Heads RSL sub-Branch, NSW to deliver the Dawn Service address and she chose to give a different perspective from most - that being the cultural cost of war and how music has played a vital role during war for our own nation and our enemies.
We are sharing this with you because of the feedback from attendees at this service that it was the best speech at any ANZAC Day they have ever heard and wanted it to be public so that others could think differently as well. The contents are from Joanne’s favourite stories from the hundreds that have been researched by the Director of the Flowers of Peace, Chris Latham OAM…
On this one day of the year for most of the nation, we try to imagine the appalling carnage, stoic sacrifices, disease, heat, hunger and captivity during the two world wars; the on-going mental health battles of more recent conflicts and how our nation has paid it’s part in both war and peace. We focus our attention on soldiers, sailors, airmen and to a lesser extent we might spare a thought about doctors and nurses.
Today, though, I am going to reflect on the cultural cost of war – and how music in particular, has played a large part in sustaining the soul, given hope in times of despair and respected the fallen. You might be inclined to think of the jingoistic, upbeat music used to boost recruitment and war efforts. This had it’s place, but perhaps after this address you might spare a thought for those composers, musicians, painters, authors, philosophers, journalists, photographers – without whom once the memory of a war is lost to the next generation (or from lived-experience), all we have as a nation is the work of those artists to remind us that diplomacy through the sharing of culture or ‘soft power’ should always triumph over war.
I can today, only give you a snippet of the hundreds of stories of how music was composed, performed and sung during war time. How it naturally filled the air, hearts and evoked memories of home and of being loved. We must not forget though, that the same can be said for our enemies.
The ties that bond the ANZACs with the Turks is not only about the mutual suffering and loss of life, but as Col James McKinley recalls “Every night as the sun used to sink down, a West Australian trumpeter used to play. The firing on both sides came to a standstill when this happened. I happened to be passing along through the canal just as he was about to play and I thought I’ll have a look over and see what the Turks are doing. Through a peephole in the side I noticed the Turks when he finished, had their hands above the parapets clapping or else belting tins just to show how much they appreciated our trumpeter playing ‘Silent Night’.”
From Quinn’s Post by Peter Stanley:
‘As the men left Gallipoli, they marked the occasion in a variety of ways.
Private Charles Bingham and three mates left an old gramophone and a dozen records including one called ‘The Turkish Patrol’ which they put on a box in their dugout. They placed around it three plates, three tins of bully beef, a knife and fork and a note which read…... ‘Have a good feed Johnny’.
“Capt Lucas played the Turkish Patrol record on the gramophone in his dugout, and as they filed out of the post said…………...
a graceful compliment to a chivalrous foe”.
In WWII, Slim de Grey composed the heart-wrenching song They’ve Taken My Old Pal Away shortly after he was forced to bid his mate farewell from Changi. His old pal joined the other 2000 British and Australian POWs bound for the Sandakan Death March, Borneo -------where only 6 survived.
How the Women’s Vocal Orchestra of Sumatra was formed in the POW camp with the skill of Margaret Dryburgh who transcribed 30 pieces of music from memory without any correction and arranged them for choir in four parts. The choir starts in 1943, but half the choir are dead by 1945. The poignant Going Home arranged to Dvorak’s Largo from the New World Symphony is best known. It is notable that the Japanese guards also attended and enjoyed the women’s concerts – often having front row seats - evidence that language and often being enemies sometimes is no barrier to the sharing of culture.
On a lighter note, entertainment was used as a remedy for depression. A quota system ensured every POW in Changi saw a new production every fortnight: variety shows, musicals, pantomime and serious drama. Performances occurred Monday to Saturday with a 30 piece orchestra on Sunday. These productions were staged by prisoners of war who joined together to form the AIF Changi Concert Party.
There were 240 changes of production in 180 weeks of imprisonment. I would challenge any arts company today to fulfil this feat of endurance and they would all be well fed! Camp guards and Japanese officers also attended these performances. Some lighter notables is the story of the Changi piano that found its way into the centre of the parade ground one morning after being dragged overnight to the Australian precinct so they would have another instrument to play for their theatre productions – they had nowhere to hide it, so decided it should be hidden in plain sight. The Aussies were renowned for stealing things after all. The Japanese guards ignored its presence.
This piano is now in the AWM collection as a testament to the importance of culture and the courage of Australians in captivity to defy persecution for the sake of it.
Incidentally, last year in the Prisoners of War Requiem we recorded 26 of the composed songs from Changi and in 2025 we will record those composed and sung on the Thai Burma Railway.
One of the highest casualty rates of WWI, even higher than for front-line troops, was among stretcher-bearers, largely drawn from the Regimental Bands. It is likely that musicians’ innate instinct to make people feel better, together with a lifetime of training to perform in public and dealing with the effects of adrenaline, made them better able to cope with the terrors of the battlefield.
Diary after diary describes the stretcher-bearers’ fearlessness in rescuing men under fire. When the NZ infantry forces landed at Gallipoli, each of the four battalions had a band. Two days later there remained only enough musicians to form a single band.
Arguably Australia’s greatest cultural loss of WWI, was Frederick Septimus Kelly who was born in Sydney and later studied music at Eton and Oxford. A gifted Olympian, composer and musician, ‘Sep’ could have been Australia’s first internationally lauded composer. Recruited into the Royal Naval Division (Churchill’s private army) he was wounded at Gallipoli only to die while rushing a German machine gun post in the last days of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Lieutenant Commander Kelly’s legacy is 36 compositions created in the trenches by the light of a candle stub, or while on leave. The Director of the Flowers of Peace recovered his works from obscurity after years of searching worldwide.
This, his final unfinished manuscript was found in the trenches in a brown leather bag in mint condition and is now in the National Library, Canberra. It was recently recorded along with all of Kelly’s music) so the nation can claim our forgotten son.
Thank you for the opportunity to share some of my favourite stories from the years of research by the Director of the Flowers of Peace. I hope that I may have reflected on the importance of remembering the cultural cost of war.….
Join me in remembering Sep’s last moments before his death through this short piece of music…
Play FS Kelly Piano Sonata in F minor, movement 3, Allegretto
