SEEING AS HOW . .. . .there is pretty wide-ranging discourse on here and that I did not think it worth starting or going to a Gallipoli thread to tell a little story here goes.
Wife is off today to visit the Dardanelles for a couple of days.
I emailed her to wish safe passage etc and repeated this story that I think she has heard before. But I doubt any habitués of this thread have and hence think it might be worth the telling.
When Australia's deputy PM Tim Fischer was there in 1990 for the 75 th memorials he stripped off on the beach early one morning and plunged into the water swimming out a fair way. Geoff Pryor, cartoonist for the Canberra Times, was on the beach too that morning with a couple of Canberra reporters . . .. . one of whom (Cranston) had a fair larrikin streak . Tim turned to swim back and as he reached the shallows stood up calling to his audience as he strode through the water " this is too easy. . . imagine having 150 pounds of kit on your back plus your rifle" . Cranston who had picked up two handfuls of small rocks passed some to Geoff saying "c'mon mate give the old bugger a bit of a barrage .. . . if he wants to pretend he knows what it was like in 1915."
(Tim Fischer was Deputy PM from '96 to '99 . . . think he might have been Minister of Trade in 1990)
Last edited by Fantome; 24th Jun 2016 at 00:46.