The PR Blog

Only minutes before midnight on Christmas Eve, 1953, the engine driver  of the Wellington  to Auckland express train will notch back  to walking pace  in a remote area of New Zealand's North Island's 'volcanic plateau. Most passengers  will be sleeping.

The train consisting of eight carriages, a heating unit, postal and guard's van will approach the  double span steel trestle  bridge, lit by the headlight of the powerful throbbing DX locomotive. At a strategic point the driver will cast a floral tribute  into the darkness, where it will come to rest in the gentle waters below to mark the tragic events that occurred here 70 years ago in 1953.

" A relative who lives in Brisbane was telling me about her visit doing Christmas shopping. She wanted to buy for her young children a Nativity Scene so she could put it on the table and explain the meaning of Christmas. Do you know that none of the shop assistants had a clue what she was talking about or even the real meaning of Christmas. This shows how much Australia has lost over the past generation.
So much for politicians enriching our society by bringing in aliens. To me it shows how bad Australia has got" 

And that got me thinking about a Christmas a long time ago. 

General Sir John Monash is one of the truly great Australians. He was an Australian military and civilian leader as well as a great contributor to Australian life. His achievements are outstanding. In my opinion, Monash was not just our most outstanding military leader but our most outstanding citizen of all time.

The achievements of John Monash are so extensive and comprehensive that I cannot condense them into a single post,  brief enough to retain the reader’s interest. Therefore I have decided to present them in six episodes of which this is the first. The episodes have been divided into specific eras of his life; Pre 1901 (two parts), 1901-1915 and 1916-1918 and Post WW1. 

Some time ago I watched a series on Netflix called " Babylon Berlin." It awoke an interest in the Weimar Republic and the change that occurred in Germany between the First World War and the Second World War when Germany flirted with democracy under the leadership of Hindenburg, the President of Germany from 1925 until 1934.

It was raw, gritty, dark and often troubling. Explicit in its portrayal of the excesses that humanity can so often, like today, embrace or at the very least, tolerate or ignore.

I was struck by the divide between those who had so much and those who had so little. Much like our world today.