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The Last Post …
It was Tuesday 25th April 2000.
I was standing on the beautiful cobbled paving at Edinburgh Castle. The sun was out, the air was still and there was complete silence around me. I entered the Scottish National War Memorial.
I stood uncomfortably looking around at the men, soldiers, adorned in full military uniforms as they ushered war veterans to their seats. Men with formal suits beautifully adorned with medals and ribbons earned from stories too sad to tell. The last of the men that were lucky enough to return from our war.
Then, the silence was awoken by the eerie sound of a bugle.
The Last Post.
The sound pierced the cold stone walls of the memorial and surrounded us. It was then I felt a sense of emotion that overwhelmed me. As I looked around, tears welling up in my eyes, I realised that these were the men that had given me my freedom. The men that had given me the opportunity to stand that day in Scotland, on the other side of the world, free. It was Anzac Day and I was a Kiwi.
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I had flown to the UK in 2000 to do my OE. I was so excited and thought I could do anything in the world. I was so ready to live an adventure, to see everything I could and have fun. I had an ancestry visa for the UK. I never knew my grandad and wanted to learn more about his homeland of Scotland.
After being in England for a few weeks I moved up to Edinburgh. I had done all the wonderful touristy things including visiting the Castle and The Royal Mile. I had to find a job immediately and there had been a job ad to work at the restaurant at the Castle. Wow I thought, imagine working at a Castle. I grabbed my CV and set off straight away.
Upon arriving I told the Stewards on the Gate that I was here to apply for a job. ‘Great’ they said, ‘We need History Stewards for the summer’. Well I definitely wasn’t going to say I was here for the café now. I wandered into the Castle, over the Drawbridge, through the Portcullis and up the Lang Stairs out into Crown Square. 30 minutes later I had a summer job.
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As the Soldier moved round the Scottish National War Memorial the sound of the bugle moved with him. Circling us and encompassing our thoughts. We stood, looking down, sadness in our eyes but immense pride in our hearts. Although I was from New Zealand my Grandfather James Reid was Scottish. He had grown up in Aberdeen and in 1914 had joined The Gordon Highlanders to fight for his country. He was just 17 years of age. He left with his regiment and fought for Scotland at France and Flanders.
Upon returning to Scotland post war, opportunities were limited, and there was no real work for Grandad and his brothers. Grandad emigrated from Scotland to NZ, and his two brothers boarded a boat to Carolina, USA. I can’t imagine the sadness that must have surrounded the family that day, as their paths were never to cross again. It was a one-way journey in search of a new life.
So, as I stood and looked at the men before me, the men that had fought, the men whose friends had lost their lives next to them on the battleground, and the young men now standing in front of me in their immaculately presented kilts and jackets starting on their own journey, I felt an incredible sense of pride and of honour, and an overwhelming feeling of belonging.
A sense of belonging to the home that my family had left, belonging to the history that had bought me back here, back to my ancestry, my story.
I realised that day that my journey had only just begun, that I was to embark on a journey of learning that went deeper than the buildings that surrounded me, deeper than the beautifully cobbled roads that kings and queens had walked on before me, deeper than the emotional and bloody battles that had been fought on the now free soil of Scotland’s lands.
….. and I had the FREEDOM to live it.
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