Australia Day

Recently in between other distractions, I've been readying my father's journal for print, so that future generations of Midges can see what the old bloke was thinking.

He'd have been delighted with yesterday's Sunday paper, giving away a free flag with each edition, and I reckon he might even have got one of those that you hang from your car window.

All in all, wiht all the flags flying around here, I think he would have approved.

Here's his entry from 26 January 1991:

There was a time when I would have said forget Australia Day, maybe have a holiday on the first Monday after, but let it go at that.

I’m sure this attitude came about during the war when the Yanks were always waving their flag, the good old Stars & Stripes. I became so sick of this, I was glad to be Australian because we used to hide our flag. Of course, doing this no one knew what our flag looked like, and that was one of the big reasons for changing it. But if we did get a new one, no one would know it either if we didn’t show it. Now I believe we should be like the Yanks and show it all the time. The Union Jack in the corner doesn’t worry me at all, whether we like it or not it was part of our heritage. And besides, it’s very handy to fly upside down, (for when a flag is upside down it shows you are in distress and goodness, Australia seems to need to fly it upside down fairly often these days,) and it’s easy to tell.

I was pleased to receive a letter near Australia Day with the above stamp on it. (Edit: The stamp in question was a coloured print of an Austrlaian Flag) I only saw one, mind you, but there should be more of it.

Let’s try to make more of our country and show off a bit, not knock it as some do.

One thing about having the holiday the Monday after, you can celebrate twice, at least.