I recently met a tree-felling expert called Bluey who had spent some time in Papua New Guinea teaching the locals the proper use of chainsaws when logging in the jungle. After a stint there he returned to Australia, working as a representative for a well-known chainsaw manufacturer.

There comes a time in life when the years have accumulated under an expanding waistband, and we wonder where they have gone. For many retirees it is a time of family, travelling, giving back to the community and self-indulgence after a lifetime of service to others. As a retired couple always looking for an unusual travel destination, we readily accepted an offer to crew on a yacht accompanying a rally to the Louisiade Islands in eastern Papua New Guinea.

Memories; they live on and emerge when a simple word recalls them and stirs the cache of stories from the past. Music stirred my memory this time, the skirl of bagpipes and sound of marching feet, drums beating time. I could hear them coming from round the corner, the sound still stirs my senses, especially on Anzac Day. The place was Brisbane. The time was the early 1940's. Our Dad wanted to say 'good-bye' to his brother and Mum had to see her young brother.

What is ‘war’ a little girl of six years pondered as she sat outside the hedge which surrounded her mother’s garden? The adults talked about what they read in the newspaper and listened intently to the news on the radio. It was late 1939 and I was that six-year-old girl. At first, life on the dairy farm went on as usual. My parents remembered that other War of 1914-1918 and they probably wondered what would happen this time.