{"id":2841,"date":"2012-12-22T05:48:18","date_gmt":"2012-12-22T05:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/soundslikewish.wordpress.com\/?p=2841"},"modified":"2019-03-29T13:26:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T02:26:00","slug":"ailsas-travel-photo-challenge-festive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/?p=2841","title":{"rendered":"Ailsa’s travel photo challenge: Festive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ailsa’s photo challenge focuses on travel,\u00a0http:\/\/wheresmybackpack.com\/2012\/12\/21\/travel-theme-festive\/<\/a>, and most (if not all) my contributions have been of photos taken far from home.\u00a0 Usually, travel is for the fun of it.\u00a0 But occasionally, throughout history, people have travelled to far-off lands to help defend them.\u00a0 For soldiers, travel is small compensation for a life that is dangerous, short on comfort and long on discipline.\u00a0 Christmas, for those raised in countries where it is celebrated, is a time when they feel particularly separated from their countrymen back home.\u00a0 For the A.I.F. (Australian Imperial Forces) in the Middle East in WWII, some comfort was offered in the establishment of a newspaper, the A.I.F. News. <\/em> It was not only the first army newspaper for Australian troops, but the first in any theatre of war.\u00a0 Initially it was printed in Jerusalem, and later transferred to Cairo.\u00a0 Here’s the Christmas issue for December 1941.<\/p>\n

\""The<\/a>
“The A.I.F. News”, Cairo, Saturday, 20 December 1941<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another form of comfort was writing.\u00a0 So far away from home at Christmas, the soldiers didn’t feel festive or joyous, especially if they’d seen horrors and lost companions in grim battle scenes.\u00a0 Many wrote poetry about the separation from girlfriends and families; the following poem, Christmas Bells, <\/em>expresses both kinds of grief, separation that is temporary and the other, which is for ever.\u00a0 The poem is in my father’s poetry anthology, but it was written by Spr. E. Locke and was published in the A.I.F. News Christmas edition in the photo above.\u00a0 I’ll add my transcription after the image.<\/p>\n

\"Christmas<\/a>
Christmas Bells, p. 1, author unknown<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\""Christmas<\/a>
“Christmas Bells”, p. 2, author unknown<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Christmas Bells<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Say, cobber, did you hear a sound
\nabove the battle’s din?
\nA sound as sweet as music
\nthat awakes response within;
\nI’m sure I heard it clearly,
\nabove the bursting shells,
\nI’m sure the sound was happiness,
\nthe chime of Christmas Bells.<\/p>\n

“It wasn’t on the battlefield,
\nbut came from o’er the foam,
\nfrom the land of joy and sunshine,
\nand the folks we left at home;
\nIt seemed to hold a note of peace,
\nto tell of joys to come;
\nof many happy Christmases,
\nwhen fighting days are done.<\/p>\n

“And now the dust of battle
\nand the torn and broken ground
\nhave changed into a happy scene
\nand friends are all around;
\nHow strange!\u00a0 The noise of screaming
\nshells has changed, and now I hear
\nThe merry laugh of happy friends
\nThat I hold ever dear.<\/p>\n

“The scene is fading fast, mate,
\nBut the Christmas bells ring clear,
\nand they’ll miss us over there, mate,
\nwhen they greet the newborn year;
\nBut yet we will be there with them,
\nto give the year a start;
\nFor though we’re miles across the sea
\nWe’re always in their heart.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ailsa’s photo challenge focuses on travel,\u00a0http:\/\/wheresmybackpack.com\/2012\/12\/21\/travel-theme-festive\/, and most (if not all) my contributions have been of photos taken far from home.\u00a0 Usually, travel is for the fun of it.\u00a0 But occasionally, throughout history, people have travelled to far-off lands to help defend them.\u00a0 For soldiers, travel is small compensation for a life that is dangerous, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Ailsa’s travel photo challenge: Festive”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14,35],"tags":[216,4,5,6,39,30,7,8,33,21,22],"class_list":["post-2841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wwii","category-wwii-photos","category-wwii-poems","tag-the-a-i-f-news","tag-1940s","tag-215th-battalion","tag-black-white","tag-cairo","tag-egypt","tag-photography","tag-photos-2","tag-poetry","tag-postaday","tag-postaday2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12458,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions\/12458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}