OUR MEETING LAST WEEK
Members shared stories of family wartime experiences ,and their own stories of visiting sites of historic battlegrounds and war cemeteries.
President Colin has sent me his own story entitled
Son of a Soldier Settler.
After the end of the Second World War hundreds of ex-service men and women took up the challenge of being “Soldier Settlers”.
They settled on land all over Australia. Local halls were built on land dotted all over the desolate plain of wherever. Together with the hall was normally a little building, sometimes one room, sometimes two, normally built of fibro cement.
They stood separated from the hall and, as a child were mystery buildings of no seeming use or importance. These little buildings were the little RSL halls. The meeting places of the returned soldiers. A place of solitude, a place of remembrance, a sacred place, and a place where just the men went.
Our little fibro cement RSL hall was at Woodhouse in the Western District near Hamilton and I can still remember with pleasure my childhood on the farm, the harmony and the 
community of the returned servicemen and women, who, in previous lives had come from diverse backgrounds and lifestyles but who now lived and worked their own properties as Soldier Settlers. Bonded together with mateship and a sense of family by a single event that some of them would never ever speak of again in their lives.
community of the returned servicemen and women, who, in previous lives had come from diverse backgrounds and lifestyles but who now lived and worked their own properties as Soldier Settlers. Bonded together with mateship and a sense of family by a single event that some of them would never ever speak of again in their lives.I remember ANZAC day when the Tarrington Brass Band would come to the Woodhouse Nareeb Hall. The shine of the brass, the uniforms and the marching music was always a treat. All the settlers from miles around came, all dressed in suits and all proudly wearing their medals. They would assemble down the road from the hall in front of Edwards gate, lots of hand shaking, back slapping and smiles and then they would assemble in formation behind the band. The smiles now replaced with a more serious face of a group of men in formation. The band would start to play and the men responded, shoulders back, arms swinging and heads held high as they marched behind the band and made their way up the road to the hall.
I also remember, as the years passed the men got older and slower and the greetings less exuberant, yet they still came, they still marched and they still wore their medals.
Today all of these men and the wives that loved and supported them have left their farms, and most of them have passed away. The Tarrington Brass Band no longer comes to the little Woodhouse-Nareeb Hall, the little RSL rooms became dilapidated and were eventually removed. No one has marched up that little stretch of road for many a year. But entrenched firmly in my mind forever is the memory of those happy, simple and contented days as the Son of a Soldier Settler and, of how much in later years I appreciate what they went through and why they marched.
It is now left to us, the children of these men and women to remember and respect, as we that are left grow old.
So, on this Remembrance Day, and every other day, at the going down of the sun and in the morning, I will remember.
How could I ever forget?