The PR Blog

A deserter, a dreamer, and a stretcher bearer who found purpose in the fire of Gallipoli ... and carried it, one wounded man at a time.

It is not often that a hero can also be a larrikin and vice versa. But John " Scotty " Simpson was such a man. A deserter who found himself thrust into the horror of Gallipoli instead of implementing his plan to jump ship in England  

John Simpson Kirkpatrick was an Englishman of Scottish parentage who wanted to get away from his wife.... so he joined the Merchant Navy in 1909. 

In 1910 he deserted from his ship when it was docked at Newcastle in Australia. He led an itinerant lifestyle as a cane cutter, coal miner and various jobs on coastal merchant ships. He also became a left wing activist with The Industrial Workers of the World. Hardly the stuff of heroes.  

But he went on to become a hero. 

RETIRED BUSH COPPER GRADUATES FROM REDHEAD’S BOOT CAMP – WITH HONOURS (AND A NEWFOUND RESPECT FOR HIS SPLEEN)

Dusty Gulch, Somewhere Out West

In what locals are already calling the most expensive “welcome back” in recent memory, Bushie,  the district’s much-loved retired bush copper,  has officially graduated from Redhead’s Boot Camp.

Not by choice. And not gently.

Yesterday, while tending to routine equine duties, Bushie received a full-powered endorsement from one of Redhead’s four-legged instructors ... delivered squarely via the hind legs. Witnesses describe the impact as “a sonic rolling pin to the midsection.”

The result? A ruptured spleen, internal bleeding, and bruising that currently suggests he went ten rounds with a gravel truck… and lost on points.

In the quiet grief of ANZAC mothers lies a deeper truth: to remember what we once knew is to honour what we cannot stop loving. 

On ANZAC Day we remember the fallen, the brave, the heroic. But behind every name etched in stone was a mother who gave life, and often, gave that life up to forces beyond her control. I suppose I am thinking about a reflection on grief, not just of war, but of all we have lost and still carry. It is a quiet meditation on the love that never stops, even when the world does.

At what point does loss become grief?

Loss can live quietly for a time. It can trail behind us like a shadow we refuse to turn and face. We speak of absence, of change, of distance. We say things have been lost - as if they might be found again. We tell ourselves stories of adaptation, of coping. But grief? Grief doesn’t ask us to cope. It asks us to stop and feel. To stand still in the debris of what once was and realise...  our problem is that we remember too much to ever truly let go.

Loss becomes grief not when something leaves us, but when we realise it will not return. And then....what then?

Two names. Two battles. One legend. At Chunuk Bair and Lone Pine, ANZAC soldiers faced hell on earth and forged a legacy that still shapes Australia and New Zealand more than a century later.

They climbed in darkness and fought in blood. In August 1915, on the rugged hills of Gallipoli, New Zealanders stormed Chunuk Bair while Australians clashed hand-to-hand in the trenches of Lone Pine. These weren’t just battles....they were crucibles.

From the smoke, terror, and sacrifice, the ANZAC spirit emerged: fierce, loyal, unyielding.

Though separated by ridges, Chunuk Bair and Lone Pine stand together in memory as the defining moments of courage, tragedy, and national identity.

It has often been said that Australia arrived at Gallipoli as six separate States and returned as a nation with a distinct identity. The cost of that transformation was steep. Of the more than 50,000 Australians who served during the 260-day campaign, 8,159 lost their lives – 5,482 killed in action, 2,012 who died of wounds, and 665 from disease.

To armchair revisionists, these may appear as mere statistics. They are not. They were men -  sons, brothers, and mates -  who died for their country and now lie in a distant land.

Recently, a young man I know, preparing for the HSC, was asked to examine the claim that Australia discovered its identity at Gallipoli, weighing both traditional and revisionist perspectives.

The traditional view is often dismissed as a version of history shaped to suit a comforting narrative, while the revisionist view claims to present events as they truly occurred. In advancing that argument, it is suggested that Australia’s first war was fought on its own soil against Aboriginal peoples, and that, in any case, Gallipoli ended in defeat.

What such interpretations overlook is that, until Federation in 1901, Australia was not a unified nation but six separate British colonies, each with its own government, laws, and even customs barriers. By the time of Gallipoli, the Commonwealth had existed for just 14 years – a nation in name, still finding its identity in practice.

On This Night, 251 Years Ago: A Warning Rode Into the Dark

251 years ago tonight - on 18 April 1775 – a Boston silversmith mounted his horse and rode into the darkness.

His mission was simple, urgent, and dangerous: warn the colonial militias that British Regulars were marching out of Boston to seize stockpiled weapons at Concord - and possibly arrest key patriot leaders.

A signal had already been arranged in the steeple of the Old North Church - one lantern if by land, two if by sea.

The rider was Paul Revere. And he was not alone.

Joined at different stages by other riders, including William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, the warning spread across the Massachusetts countryside. Farms, villages, and militia groups were alerted in time.

By dawn, when the first shots rang out at Lexington and then Concord, the militias were ready.

The war had begun.