Recently I visited the Time – Rone exhibition at the Art Gallery. It asks us to journey in time and question what we leave behind when we go? What stories might our most treasured and ordinary possessions tell about us?
Walking through the spaces created is equal parts haunting and enthralling, a look back into Australia’s mid-century working class. From a half-written love letter left on a typing machine; to the deck of cards strewn part way through a round on the tearoom table.
Many of the photographs and cast away items remind me of walking through my Grandpa’s shed. Tins from the 1950s filled with leftover nails, an old Hercules shaving box with misfitting but potentially useful bolts. A Peters’ Ice-cream tin with a chemical that smelt more dangerous than it looked. Exciting titbits for an 8-year-old to happen across.
Grandpa was a submariner in World War 2. He didn’t tell many stories from his time in the Navy to his grandchildren. One story he did tell stays with me. The crew on the submarines were getting younger and younger as the war went on and many boats didn’t make it home. His submarine was being targeted by depth charges from above. They waited on the ocean floor, still and dark, trying to avoid detection as charges rumbled in the water above. Grandpa had used part of that day’s water ration to wash his socks and thought “at least I’ll have clean socks if we don’t make it this time”. I’m in awe of the stoic humour that comes through that story. A way of telling us the fear without making us fearful. He had a way of using humour to disarm and comfort.
Grandpa made it through the war and came to Australia from Glasgow to marry the woman he met on shore leave. I was thinking of them both walking through the art gallery last week and again on Monday during Remembrance Day.
The tragedy felt during Remembrance Day this week isn’t just the lives lost during war. It’s all the futures that were taken away. The half-written love letters that never had a chance of being finished. The grandchildren not being comforted by humour or experience strange discoveries in old tin containers from a musty smelling shed.
As we remember the sacrifices made from those who died in war; as we walk through the photographs and objects of time past; we’re called to think about what legacy our own time will give.
Have my actions today made the world a better place? When I leave a lesson, or a meeting how will I be remembered? All I can hope for, all I wish for, is that my actions each day fill those around me with a sense of humour and kindness. Like the legacy my grandfather gave to his family.
The chance of a future is the one gifted to us today from those who did not make it through the wars of the past.
Lest we forget.
Peter Jones
Son of Anne and Gavan Jones
Grandson of Fay Jones; Bernice and Bill Hay