The PR Blog

When I was a kid ( and I don't mean baby goat, I mean a small child of the human variety) my mother was some kind of demi-god. She was the person who ensured that my bed was snug and warm, clothed in crisply washed sheets that smelled of sunshine because they had been hung on the clothesline and swung in the breeze on a lazy summer's day. 

I remember when I was a kid and she tucked me in at night, often so tight that I was cradled in a tight jacket of sorts and she would kiss me on my cheek and whisper " sleep tight , don't let the bed bugs bite " and the light chord would be pulled and I would wonder what a bed bug was and why it might bite me. 

But the sandman would come and before I knew it, I would wake up, stretch and wander out to the smell of hot porridge and warm milk, sweetened with honey. 

Much is written these days about wise men. About foolish men. Dangerous men. Men who stir the pot for self-gratification or for brownie points on their Santa list. Men who do or did brave things and bucked the system in order to do what is right.

These men will come and go and history will gnaw at their bones like pieces of meat to be devoured and rendered back unto ashes with only the history books to remember their legacy - faithfully recorded or severely edited, depending upon the political and societal climate of the day. 

So who are the men that we can look up to in times of darkness and despair? 

As I wrote in a previous article, when I was at school the British Empire was coloured red on the map of the world, demonstrating the truth of the saying that the sun never set on the Empire.  This is now long gone,and one can well ask why.

The reason for its global colonisation was the class system in England, which developed out of the feudal system of landlord and serf in the Middle Ages into the class system, at about the time of the Industrial Revolution.  There were the upper, middle and lower classes, distinguishable by their accents.  The upper class included the aristocrats, landed gentry and people of wealth and influence; the middle class included shopkeepers, lawyers, book-keepers and the like; the lower class included the workers and the indigent.  Non-whites were considered inferior to the white race and were barred from the country.

I wonder how close we are to becoming disenfranchised in order to perpetuate the narrative that White Lives Don’t Matter?

Throughout the world, people are being told to be ashamed for the colour of their skin and their ancestry and heritage.

In some places, indigenous people are being given preferential treatment over the rest of the population. I fear that this is the beginning of a wave of disenfranchisement for white populations and is going to grow to a tsunami, unless something is done to stop it by building a line of defence against this growing forment.

The smouldering ashes of the Glenrowan Inn take many hours to cool down before the police can do anything further but eventually they do. The bodies of the three bushrangers and a non-sympathiser hostage, Martin Cherry, who has been hit by a police bullet, are retrieved. Superintendent Sadlier, the most senior man on the spot does not want to release the bodies to the families. They are to be kept for an inquest but the large throng of armed sympathisers, who outnumber the police, remonstrate and cause him to change his mind. Soon after, Standish arrives from Benalla and approves the release of the bodies of Dan Kelly and Steve Hart to their families.