Courageous warriors on Remembrance Sunday
Published:
November 10, 2008 at 1:12pm
Spot the difference
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Here’s part of the story reported in today’s Times. No prizes for guessing to which picture it refers.
At last year’s Remembrance Sunday ceremony, Eric Gulston M.M. collapsed and it was thought he would not live through the night. But nothing can seem to stop the resilient 84-year-old, who had served in the Coldstream Guards, and he attended the event again yesterday. After 1944, Mr Gulston was stationed all over the world, including Palestine, Egypt, Germany and Kenya, retiring after Aiden in 1965.
The “M. M.” behind his name is important to him, as to anybody in the British Services, and should not be omitted, his wife points out. They stand for Military Medal, awarded to Mr Gulston by King George VI in 1949, when he led his patrol of young servicemen into the Malayan jungle and got cut off with no food and water for a week but still managed to get them out alive.
With that major feat under his belt, it is not surprising that he mustered the strength to attend yet another Remembrance Sundayceremony and that, against the odds, he could be in yet another photograph in The Times, positioned as he has always been, at the foot of the Floriana War Memorial.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20081110/local/the-veteran-soldier-who-will-not-miss-remembrance-day
Toni Zarb is always so courageous when he is fighting the PN…….or eating a bar of chocolate.
On the other hand, that veteran in the picture has celebrated Remembrance Sunday in Malta every year since 1970. When you have inner courage and sense of duty, it shows. It’s like a beam of light and that picture of the veteran says a thousand words. The MLP, and GWU and its leaders have neither. Toni is smiling like an oversize Maltova baby. And behaving like one. He is completely at home at the MLP manifestazzjoni. At least he wasn’t wearing a poppy, whilst his friend was wearing a “gakketta blu” type of jacket…remember those? Isthu, wicc ta’ qorq!
[Daphne – Is that an expression they use in Zurrieq? Tony Zarb didn’t wear a poppy because it symbolises a gwerra tal-barrani, though if the auberge at the top of Old Bakery Street hadn’t taken a direct hit, the GWU building would not exist and the Labour government would have had to requisition somebody’s property to stick its union in.]
It’s “Aden”, not “Aiden”. Bloody cretins.
[Daphne – Missed that one, though I did correct the suggestion that he served with the Cold Guard.]
Good thing Tony’s in pink, or we’d have thought he was Anglu’s elephant!
(By the way, someone must have told him that he looks “cute” in pink, because he was wearing a pink shirt at Busy Bee on Sunday the 5th October – presumably after laying a wreath on the “wedding cake” at Msida. Maybe he saves his pink shirt/s for such “special” occasions.)
Jesus Christ on the rocks. They didn’t really write that, did they? Tell me you’re making this up.
———-
STOP PRESS
I clicked on the Times link, and by golly, what a bunch of morons. They corrected it to Coldstream Guard. Singular. Jesus. It’s GUARDS.
[Daphne – Sorry about that; I meant Coldstream Guard, singular, and I corrected it to the plural. They also speak about Remembrance Day, but that’s tomorrow. Yesterday was Remembrance Sunday.]
Just to make things clear: When I say cretins, I mean the Times writers, not you. You weren’t the one getting the story about this gentleman’s military career, so if you make a minor error I’m not about to grill you over it. These Times dilettantes, on the other hand… Reminds me of Joe “Peppi” Azzopardi calling a sniper rifle “l-isnajper”. “Allura int kellek l-isnajper f’idek.” Then there’s the one about “Jigu bl-Exocets itiru minn fuqna”, courtesy of Alfred Sant.
He is probably preparing himself for the arrival of Barney The Dinosaur at the GWU theatre and hoping not to be confused with him!
[Daphne – Barney is attractive to children.]
What is the point in comparing the two events? I didn’t know you were so hooked on our colonial past.
[Daphne – Don’t speak like an idiot, Gerald. You let yourself down. It has nothing to do with ‘our colonial past’.]
Daphne, if you know what qorq means, then you would know what wicc ta’ qorq signifies.
Suggest you look up your dictionary. Village Maltese is full of extraordinarily descriptive expletives. I would have thought you would have picked up some by now, living in Bidnija.
Carmel, he does look like Barney doesn’t he? Can’t stand both. Neither can my 5-year-old, thank God. I was having visions of being dragged to watch this multi-coloured dinosaur in that hall of prehistoric ideas, the WMB. Double ouch averted!
[Daphne – I know exactly what qorq means. It’s just that in my part of the island we say wicc zibel, not wicc ta’ qorq.]
Gerald: Remembrance Sunday does not commemorate ‘our colonial past’. It is an occasion to commemorate the fallen and to pay respect to the survivors of war.
The fight against the Axis powers in WWII – the last war in which Malta was involved directly – ensured political and religious freedom, in the countries of the west if not in those Allied countries which fell behind the Iron curtain. It is a poor service to the memory of those who died and a slight to those who survived to use that freedom in a manner that discredits their sacrifice.
Joseph Muscat has yet to learn that. I’m disappointed to see that you do too.
@ Gerald
World War I is an important milestone in the history of the world. It has nothing to do with ‘our colonial past’ as you so intelligently put it. Scores of poems and novels have been written (Daphne referred to one such poem by McCrae and I have also posted one by Wilfred Owen, considered to be one of the best war poets ever). In my day, we were taught such poems at school (I don’t know what they’re taught nowadays but judging by the howler listed under ‘Injurant tal-prima klassi’ they’re being taught nada).
When an event inspires poets and novelists to put words to paper it means that an event is seared in public consciousness. I think that the best tribute to the Great War is found in the most unlikely places: the series finale in Blackadder.I tried finding it on YouTube but it keeps telling me ‘Video no longer available
@ Gerald… what a tw@ !!
Meerkat…..I just love you. The series finale of Blackadder is just so telling. The futility and the stupidity of war but with the purpose of peace. The coward goes forth, along with the fearful Darling. So poignant….and so meaningful.
[Daphne – You’re a married man, sir.]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3V698JzqC0
Meerkat, here it is.
[Daphne – I remember crying and laughing at the same time when I first watched that, and now I’ve done so again. I wonder how Kurt Farrugia and Joseph Muscat would have coped in those conditions.]
Bugger…..so brave….so fitting….so short…so to the point.
Watch it,all of you. And then you will see why all of us got so upset with Muscat.
Daphne. Yes I am. I still love Meerkat though.
On the subject of qorq. Qiegh ta’ qorq means the hard dirty leather sole of a type of sandal worn by everyone up to the late 1960s. The comparison to the face is obvious.
Joseph Muscat would have refused to go over, citing some claptrap about social justice. But he wouldn’t have gone near the trenches. He would probably have rendered himself unfit for duty and be holed in some quartermaster job somewhere.
@Daphne. I still laugh and cry every time I see it. Two years ago I got lost in Belgium whilst driving to see a business associate. I came across a big cemetery of WW1 dead. I couldn’t take it all in. It moved me so much, I spent the whole day wandering amongst the graves. They were tended by some really quite lovely people, who have been doing so for ages. And yet, they told me they are still moved every day.
All we can do is never forget….and never let others forget.
He does look like Barney, they will probably put on a double act. Some irate parent might actually clobber him instead of the real Barney………..
May I also recommend a fairly recent film on the subject: Merry Christmas/Joyeux Noël (2005)?
Very poignant! The use of three languages simultaneously throughout the film somehow reminds me how far we’ve come with the European project.
amrio is getting angry with Mario Debono….
[Daphne – I know exactly what qorq means. It’s just that in my part of the island we say wicc zibel, not wicc ta’ qorq.]
“wicc ta’ broxk”, too
In prefer to use the very simple but effective wicc il-*** (cannot reproduce the word here as I believe there already is a libel case going on regarding the use of the same word).
[Daphne – Well, actually, a gay male friend from London has just described him as one of those, but a nun’s one.]