What a healed bone, the smell of leather, and a soldier’s burden reveal about who we are -  and who we may forget to be.

We often think of civilisation in terms of inventions -  the wheel, the plough, the phone in your pocket. But true civilisation isn’t measured in tools or technology. It’s measured in what we do for one another. It’s in the instincts we carry, and the sacrifices we make. And maybe ... just maybe ... it’s in something as quiet and human as staying with the wounded when everyone else runs. In an age obsessed with moving fast and recording everything, it’s worth asking: do we still remember how to carry someone?

Years ago, someone asked the anthropologist Margaret Mead what she considered to be the first sign of civilisation in an ancient culture. They expected her to point to tools -  fishhooks, clay pots, grinding stones -  the usual suspects in the archaeological story of progress.

But Mead didn’t name an object. She named an act.

Thomas Pritchard, Australia's last "Rat of Tobruk"  passed away at the age of 102 on 3rd of August 2024. Pritchard was part of the famous garrison who held the Libyan port against a furious Nazi siege in World War II. 

" They lived like rats and  they fought like lions "

I would venture to say that the two most famous and well known phrases of our military history are “Gallipoli” and “The Rats of Tobruk”. One was a magnificent defeat. The other was a magnificent triumph.

Field Marshall Sir William Slim, 13^th Governor General of Australia and at the time, General commanding the 14^th Army said after the triumph over the Japanese at Milne Bay that “…..Some of us may forget that, of all the Allies, it was the Australians who first broke the invincibility of the Japanese army and it was the Australians who first broke the invincibility of the German army.”

In speaking of the defeat of the German Army he was speaking about Tobruk. 14,000 Australian soldiers embarked on an eight month siege defending the harbour town of Tobruk, beginning on April 10-11 1941.

In a thoughtful historical essay published on this blog, John Ruddick celebrated the British discovery of Australia. He detailed how Captain Cook, through a mix of science, navigation, and extraordinary luck, laid the foundation for modern Australia -  a nation shaped by Western civilisation, built on exploration, liberty, and law.

“None could have done so much with it as the British,” Ruddick wrote, thanking Captain Cook and placing Australia within a proud tradition stretching back to Rome.

In that same piece, he highlighted the significance of ideas, of intellectual heritage, of the long arc of Western civilisation culminating - quite literally - on these shores.

And yet, in August 2025, that same John Ruddick praised the closure of the Sydney Harbour Bridge to allow a mass pro‑Palestinian march to proceed - a protest movement whose leading organisers have cheered on Hamas, and whose symbols are aligned with the very forces that oppose everything Ruddick once defended: Enlightenment values, classical liberalism, and ordered liberty.

How does a man go from quoting Roman philosophers and honouring Captain Cook... to waving through the disruption of a city in support of ideological chaos?

From immigration policy to identity politics, energy to ideology -  the erosion of Western society is no accident. It’s part of a pattern.

Sometimes, you have to wonder: is all this just incompetence, or something more coordinated? Policies that seem to defy common sense are being rolled out with alarming consistency - not to strengthen the nation, but to fracture it.

One might start by looking at immigration. Not just the numbers, but the nature of it. Instead of families or vulnerable refugees, we’re seeing a steady flow of young, single, fighting-aged men, often from regions with vastly different values, cultures, and religious worldviews. There's no requirement to assimilate. In fact, it's almost as if assimilation is the one thing being actively discouraged.

And when ordinary citizens begin to express discomfort, the response isn’t dialogue ... it’s dismissal. They’re labelled racists, xenophobes, far-right agitators. Their frustration is turned into something sinister. No longer patriots but monsters to be erased....?

In the 1970s, listening to Pirate Radio was more than entertainment -  it was defiance. As modern censorship creeps into every corner of digital life, I find myself wondering: will we need to tune back in?

Not to music over the waves, but to whatever Pirate Radio becomes in our age of tech control.

In the 1970's, Pirate Radio Stations were all the rage. It was seen as a badge of honour to quietly admit to listening to Pirate Radio. As the internet becomes increasingly censored, are we going to turn the clock back to those heady days of defiance and consider buying a shortwave receiver? if not, what will be the modern-day equivalent of Pirate Radio?

My first encounter with Pirate Radio was in New Zealand as a schoolgirl in 1968.