Long Service

Yesterday, being at rather a loose end, I wandered up to Springwood Sports Club to see my parents being awarded long service medals for their thirty plus years service with Blaxland Bushfire Brigade.  Others were being similarly acknowledged but I was really only interested in my parents.

My family moved to Blaxland in the Blue Mountains over thirty years ago (most of us are still there) and my parents joined the local volunteer bushfire brigade more or less the next day.  My father had a Class C drivers licence which came in handy operating the war surplus, ex military vehicles the brigade was equipped with at the time.  Those vehicles were eventually replaced in the 1980s but my parents weren't.

For thirty six odd years my parents and their colleagues gave up their spare time for training, maintenance, hazard reduction, fund raising and occasionally (although not occasionally enough for those who love them) risking their lives fighting bushfires.  I can recall as a child occasions when my father would come home filthy and reeking of smoke (I do the same thing now but for much less salubrious reasons) or my mother would come in absolutely exhausted having spent the previous twelve hours organising and despatching fire crews and liaising with higher up the organisational chain for the allocation of scarce resources.

Now, in the function room of a modest local club and in the (very brief) presence of various politicians that service was acknowledged.  Acknowledged is the right word.  It isn't payment or reward, a medal is a small piece of coloured ribbon attached to an equally inconsequential lump of base metal.  But what it does say is that somebody noticed and thought such service was worth recognising.

The ceremony, rather ironically, took place while it poured with rain outside although this did limit the likelihood of proceedings being interrupted by an emergency call out.  Various politicians were in attendance including the local state and federal MPs.  The state MP made a speech in which she mentioned her adolescent son had been going off the rail but that becoming a member of the local bushfire brigade had helped to sort him out.  This is great news for him, her, the brigade and society at large but it did rather give the impression that she thought the bushfire brigade was some sort of community outreach program.  The federal MP gave a speech of such rambling incoherence that I still have no idea what she was talking about.

Neither of them stuck around for the actual presentation.  They gave their speeches and then left.  Personally I think they could have showed more respect by either staying to the end or not turning up at all.  The local mayor did stay to the end but then he's a volunteer firefighter.

With the politicians out of the way and escorted safely off the premises the actual presentation could commence.  This was undertaken with just enough glitches to show that most of those involved actually only did this in their spare time in between their jobs and their lives.  Below is a photograph of my parents.  I'm terribly proud of both of them.