I am questing  for some answers. And that suggests something is missing. There a gap in my knowledge when it comes to history, one I purposely created myself . My first post explains why. I’m trusting TV documentaries to fill me in about the official big picture, what I’m pursuing  is a  human connection through a man and a time I do not know.

It’s been one hundred years since the Great War – I know why everyone thought my grandfather went to war –For King and Country. But isn’t that a cliche answer — the one they used on enlistment posters. Does anyone believe that now we’ve had a century to look back over the circumstances? Did they even believe it then?

I’m taking on a research and learning journey using my grandfather as a conduit and hoping to get to know him on the way. I think I’m trying to find out:

• Who did you have to be to sign up and sail away to fight?
• And who did you become?

I’m searching through personal memories and collective memories, stories and history, documents and photos. Each source is quite different,  all  of them unreliable to some degree — open to interpretation, exaggeration, idealization. I’m finding my skills unreliable at times too, but the process is absolutely fascinating.

Wish me luck!

 … history does not exist, all we’ve got is the fossilised remnants of history in the present. We string them together in our minds as a dream-like narrative that’s not real.             Shaun Tan