To misquote John Lyly, all is not fair in love and war.

Eric Halden knows this well and is reminded of it each year on November 11.

Residing at Mooroopna Place, an independent living unit of Shepparton Villages, Eric is a steadfast attendee of their annual Remembrance Day service.

This year, however, stirred a deeper personal significance.

Upon entering the hall, he and other guests were greeted by a striking sight: a riot of warm colours and ANZAC imagery in a quilt by Eric’s sister, Glenice Hawks.

Turning her needlework into a memorialisation, it commemorated those who had served and sacrificed for Australia’s freedom.

Verses from The Last Post are encircled by a frame of marching soldiers and raw-red poppies, allowing the fabric itself to speak a sole message: we will remember them.

Yet, the feelings it evoked for Eric were mixed.

There is pride in the family members who served in wartime and sorrow in being left with only their memories.

While most of the Halden-Pell family funnelled their distress into silence, Uncle Ken Halden told tales of his turbulent time on the frontline, much to Eric’s fascination.

“Uncle Ken told lots of things,” Eric said.

“I used to go to his place and spend a couple of hours with him just talking about all those things.

“That all built up in my memory, and that’s how I’ve become so passionate about it.”

Among those sent to fight in World War II were Uncle Ken and his brother Eric Halden (or ‘Big Eric’ as his family called him).

When they enlisted, others who fought in World War I told them, “Volunteer for nothing. Just take things as they come”.

And that’s what they did.

“The brothers sailed to Fremantle before training in Egypt,” Eric said.

“They were separated for some time before they sighted each other while training.

“Though they were in the same division, they thought it better that they were in different units – less likely they would both be killed.”

As they arrived in Egypt, the relentless dust and sand enveloped their very beings.

The initial weeks stretched into months in the gritty terrain, a precursor to their deployment to Tobruk, where they would spend three gruelling months.

The air was thick with an unsettling blend of tension and heat, punctuated by the chaos of a dust storm.

In those storms, the landscape turned monochromatic, forcing the men to navigate with handkerchiefs wrapped over their faces.

After chewing dust all day, evenings brought the promise of a proper meal of bully beef and biscuits.

“Well, you might as well chew a piece of wood, as the biscuits were that hard,” Uncle Ken would say.

The nights spent in trenches or huddled in foxholes, plagued by fleas like tiny invaders, the suffocating grit of sandstorms, and even combat – they took it all as it came, just as they were told to do.

During a particularly fierce attack, machine guns erupted in Uncle Eric’s unit.

Men were falling all around as Uncle Eric dodged thousands of bullets before being struck by shrapnel in his knee.

“He limped for the rest of his life,” Eric said.

Though the conditions were dire, with supplies dwindling and the heat suffocating, morale within their units remained high.

The moniker ‘The Rats of Tobruk’ adopted by the Australians became a badge of honour, a cheeky response to the disparaging words of the Nazi propagandist Lord Haw Haw, who had proclaimed them trapped.

But the siblings were not trapped.

They fought the good fight, returning briefly to Australia before being sent to the jungles of New Guinea against Japan until World War II’s imminent end.

All members of the Halden-Pell family who served returned to Australia, welcomed by their loved ones.

They found their way home, just as the quilt honouring their service found its way to Eric’s home at Mooroopna Place.

Looking up at the material, I asked Eric what it meant to him.

“It makes me think of family,” he said.

How disorienting and unjust for time to spin forward without them.

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Tuesday, 15th October 2024

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