Patriot Realm

Before I was born in the 1950s, the Second World War was finally at an end. 

America, Australia and New Zealand were booming with post war babies and the arrival of new migrants. 

In 1947, this film was created to explain the education system in Australia. A bit before Shaydee's time, But it is worth putting in.

I was one of those " Baby Boomers " and I am pleased to have been born back in 1955. So many never knew life because the soldier, sailor, or air force man never made it. 

So I was one of the lucky ones who got to grow up in the post-war austerity years and prosper under its frugal generosity of spirit.

Money was not abundant. Our countries were financially struggling. 

But we were rich in love. 

Love from grateful women and grateful men who managed to survive. 

And celebrate? They did in great abundance. 

Part of our celebration was gratitude. For life given.  And gratitude for life lost defending decency and traditional values. For respect for those who gave life so that we could give have what they never could.

We were children born of military men and regimentation was in our blood. 

Our fathers had survived the war because they knew how to fight as a unit and how to be disciplined.

So it should be no surprise that our schools and our curriculum were so very rigid.

It was something our fathers knew all too well. 

Regimentation was part of how to survive. 

I learned to stand up when my teacher entered the room. I learned to navigate the school grounds and classrooms as we hurtled from one lesson to another within the allotted time. 

But I had already acquired many of the skills I needed to survive whilst at home: do what I was told, when I was told.

And that was no bad thing. Life was different back then.

Because, all those years ago, what I was told was the foundation of my entry into adulthood: 

Be respectful to my elders. Don't be a bully. Treat others as you would like to be treated. 

And I learned that at home, not at school. School merely reinforced what I had already been taught by loving and responsible parents.

Perhaps that is where our fathers differed from us? They were told to follow orders - even if those orders were wrong?  I wonder.

Maybe that is why we were taught how to think, not what to think.

I was blessed with a great teacher in primary school, and many others of merit in my later education. 

I was already respectful, diligent, enquiring and polite. 

For me, it was no sausage mill that ground out students minds in the post war years. I cannot say that I was unduly influenced by that regimentation. In fact, quite the opposite. 

Yet today, we see children bombarded with dangerous indoctrination and mind-damaging confusion. 

Words that had not been invented are now commonplace and, those that were hidden in dictionaries are now spread like vermin in the classrooms and libraries. 

We may have marched to school assembly halls and stood quietly for the National Anthem; but we were free to explore with our minds in our own time. 

To be groomed or well groomed when I was a child meant to be clean and tidy in appearance.

Not to be made ready for sexual exploitation.

To refer to a rainbow signified a covenant with God, not an encounter with a sexually confused adult.

To be gay meant being happy, not a homosexual.

Being a tomboy meant that I liked playing with my brothers and climbing trees - it did not mean training as a pole dancer or being rushed off for puberty blockers.

I enjoyed playing sports and competing against other girls. 

I was not expected to compete against one of my brothers or their friends. It would have not been a competition: it would have been an unfair " fight "  and it would have taken all of the fun out of playing the game.

What saddened me when I rewatched this video of Pink Floyd's masterpiece was that it is better viewed through the lens of a 2022 viewer than that of the person in the 1980's.

Because the rebellion and destruction is what we see NOW, not THEN. 

Watch it and weep.