Tuesday, 1 July 2025 | Term 1 | Week

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Anzac Speech given by George Shead on Anzac Day 2012

ANZAC Day is a time for us to pay our respects and thanks to those who have fought for our country and for the life we live.  We celebrate their bravery in leaving home and venturing out to foreign lands, facing death and striving to bring peace.  Many soldiers in the World Wars would have been my age, and this is one idea that I can barely conceive.  Imagining myself marching off into battle with my brother, all my friends, classmates, senior students all over New Zealand, and the certainty that countless numbers of us would be killed, never to return home.  Even to be one of the lucky ones, I can’t imagine how it would feel. To come back, knowing that so many friends and New Zealanders would remain in the soil of far away countries, and to have the memories of what must have been a living hell, with you forever.  Today we honour these brave men and women.  We will remember them.

I remember every year at school, when we had an ANZAC ceremony we always heard the head prefect’s speeches from this service, and usually they would talk about how their family was linked to one of the wars.  The only relative I knew who fought during one of the great wars was my great uncle, who was shot at Dunkirk yet thankfully survived.

More recently, however, my family experienced a different side of the effects of war, which we are also here to celebrate.  The incredible bonds and friendships forged in the midst of battle, which is never forgotten.  A couple of years ago my Mum’s brother, John, came over from England, but before he left, an old man he knew, called Ken Hooper gave him something from his time fighting in WW2.  A pocket bible.  When he was a young man, he went off to fight in Crete and he became friends with a Maori soldier, Private J Tahana, who lent him this bible.  They were separated in battle and never saw one another again.  After the war was over Mr Hooper tried to forget the horrors of the war, and it was not until his late 80’s that he found the bible in an old box.  His last wish was that John brought it with him to NZ, and try to return it to Tahana.  Eventually, we found the Tahana whanau, and although the ANZAC veteran had passed away, his family was overwhelmed by the return of the little bible.  Soon after this, Ken Hooper also passed away, but at least he died knowing that the bible had been returned to the family of the man he had befriended in battle all those years ago. 

Friendships made when people are thrust together to fight against a common threat are the strongest, and it is for the acts of genuine kindness and selflessness that form these friendships that we celebrate today.  Even at a time when their lives were endangered at every moment, and when hope may have seemed a far away idea, our people showed bravery and compassion towards whoever needed it.  We celebrate them for this. 

Lest we forget.

Anzac Speech given by George Shead on Anzac Day 2011