ANZAC DRUNKS

This is self-indulgent but I want to refer to a letter that I wrote, a letter that appeared in The Age this morning.

I was angered enough to write over the weekend after reading a feature in The Age debunking the so-called myths of Anzac Day.

And I wrote it hours after going to the Dawn Service at the Shrine.

It was my first dawn service in Melbourne – although I went to the tribute at Gallipoli last year – and I will never miss a dawn service again. I was amazed that about 20,000 people turned up pre-dawn last Friday.

And NOBODY sang the national anthem. I suspect it is because it is unsingable. And whose home is girt by sea anyway?

Back to the letter.

I wrote:

“While Christopher Bantick was debunking the so-called myths of Anzac Day (The Age April 25) he was ignorantly trying to create a myth of his own.

He wrote “ I wonder if the yobbism that marred last year’s service at Anzac Cove, where bellicose backpackers wrapped themselves in Australian flags while brandishing beers, advances the national understanding of Gallipoli?”

And he talked of “ shabby behaviour” and “ larrikinism”.

Not true. Didn’t happen. I was there. Apparently he wasn’t.

The myth of drunken Aussies was started by a story in The Australian. After being asked about it on radio I confronted the journalist at Gallipoli. Typically he blamed the sub-editors and headline writers.

For the record I saw 15,000 sincere and well-behaved Australians at Gallipoli. I did see one drunk throwing up. He was a young Turk.”

That was the letter published in The Age today. It follows a letter I had published about the same issue in The Bulletin around this time last year.

I am not being obsessive about this. I just want to ensure that a scurrilous myth does not get cemented into every newspaper library in the country for writers like Christopher Bantick to embellish.

Monday, April 28, 2003

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2002