Insecure Writers Support Group Post--reaching for your dreams.

Hi all!

Lovely to see another month flit by in the speed of light, isn't it? No, not really. Are you like me wondering how time can go so fast and you never quite catch up with all the things you have to do?

So...when I was wondering what to share today, I found myself staring at a photograph. Not just any old photograph, but a very original sepia photograph taken in 1917 in Codforth, England, wherever that might be. It's part of an interactive activity at the State Library of Queensland's Distant Lines project.

Here we have a group of Aussie diggers, both young and old, who have survived Gallipoli and the Somme battles and are waiting for their next posting.

I couldn't help wondering--what dreams and aspirations did these soldiers have? According to the original text on the postcard, they were checking out this English village and exclaiming at the beauty of the churches. No doubt facing death gave churches an allure.

Australia was a young country, well, it still is, relatively speaking, and these soldiers would probably have been farmers, as most Australians were in the early 1900s. What hopes and dreams did they have for their return? Were they hoping the government would give them a larger selection to do their back-breaking farming work? Did they yearn to see their wives, their girlfriends, their parents? Whatever their dreams, I hope they achieved them.

So, peeps, keep on dreaming and working towards your dreams. Our future holds more promise than that which stretched before these soldiers. Let's take the future in both hands and aspire to dream!

More inspiring quotes here: dld.bz/dB9DQ 

Thanks for reading. Click here to go to more IWSG posts. Thanks so much to the hosts this week and to Alex J Cavanaugh, whose brainchild this meme is. And even though the month flies by too fast, I really love reading as many posts as I can.

• Do you believe in the power of dreams?
• Do you have reachable goals?

If your hopes and dreams include improving your writing,
WEP has just the thing. Join our Settings challenge
due to go live on August 19.

ANZAC DAY

Clomp! Clomp! Thump! Thump! Tarah! Tarah! What's this?

Australia celebrates ANZAC day every year on April 25th. This is to commemorate the Gallipoli dawn landing where Australian and New Zealand soldiers arrived on the beach at Gallipoli, Turkey in 1915. Those who survived being shot at from the cliffs by the Turks dug in for over 8 months of daily skirmishes.

Australia must be one of the least warlike nations on earth (despite our previous PM's love fest with George Bush), yet this day is celebrated because it is written in our history as the time Australia became a nation in her own right. From our British Empire convict beginnings, then forming the Federation of States in 1901, it was through this shedding of blood of young men, the stories from the battlefields, that it is felt Australia came of age. No longer a baby sucking the British bottle, she had grown into an ungainly child. Sadly in such a young nation, over 8,000 young men died, some as yound as 14, who had foolishly signed up 'to see the world.'

It was on the battlefields of WW1 that so many aspects of the Australian Identity were formed - larrakins, practical jokers, bronzed Aussies, courageous, irreligious...and many more blokey descriptions. A very blokey country. I'm just a sheila! Ha! Ha! We're still in the adolescent phase.

But the point of my history lesson is that I was on the streets in Brisbane on Anzac Day. I saw the modern diggers marching, the display of army vehicles, the proud regimental displays, and it gets me every time - in such a peaceful nation it looks an anacronyism to see this display on our fun-filled streets. I could see the surprise on the tourists' faces, wondering what was going on, whether they were in the right country. It got me thinking about the fear in people's hearts when they see a foreign power driving its tanks through their streets.

I've recently re-read 'Pied Piper' by Nevil Shute. A great classic which was released during WW2. Shows the war from the elderly and child perspective. Written in such spare prose as the proper English gentleman led a bunch of children across recently-invaded France. Loved it all over again.

So many great books...