A little tale. One day, a few months back, I found myself in Somerset killing time after a three-day hike across moors and dells. I visited an antique fair where ladies with purple hair sold things that smelled of mothballs and the shoppers looked like a crooked-toothed host from Antiques Roadshow. It was perfectly quaint.
I just chatted a bit. A lady heard my accent and said, “I’ve saved this for you.” She grabbed my arm and dragged me to her pile of plastic boxes behind her stall of war memorabilia. “I promised I’d offer this to the next Australian I meet,” she said handing me this tatty little book…
Padre Gault was an Australian Methodist minister who wandered the trenches in World War I providing guidance and solace. His Stunt Book was a collection of wisdoms and witticisms geared at providing solace to soldiers. I accepted the book, and paid her a few pounds for it and have been reflecting on it, sharing it with friends, since.
My favourite bits are where Padre asks the soldiers a question about life. The responses are so raw. He asks them about the sky:
“Why don’t they keep the moon for a dark night?” – Anon
And being a man:
“If the Australian soldier could attain a moral standard equivalent to his fighting abilities, it would approach closely to