Baaack

[threemonkeys]

I'm not obsessed. Really, I'm not. Well, OK the first thing I did after getting back from 5 days away from home and the Internet was to turn on my computer and read my flist. You have been busy. But to prove that I'm not completely obsessed, I have forced myself away without comments. Really, that proves I'm OK - right? I'm even going to leave writing about the trip until tomorrow.

Since the trip was on ANZAC day, it seemed appropriate to stop here. I've never been through the army museum before. It has lots of guns. It also has an electronic record of all the soldiers who have died on active service for New Zealand. There are a sobering number of my relatives on that list.

Comments

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

What's particularly sobering is how many of them probably died for England, rather than for NZ. (I've decided that I'm allowed to be anti-colonial for a few days.)

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

They all died fighting in Europe, so yes they were fighting for England. Not to mention all those ancestors who were actually in the British army - the Temples are a military family. Given what some of them got up to as senior commanders in India and Ireland, it isn't a heritage to be proud of and certainly adds weight to anti-colonial thoughts.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

Now I'm curious about the origins of your surname. "Temple" with a military tradition sounds something Dan Brown would love.

It's funny how our mood weights how we weigh things. There must be a bunch to be proud of in your family (and mine - 2 great uncles, my father's first cousin, my father and I suspect other rellos fought in WWII - only one of them did anything to actually defend Australia) but because we're feeling a particular way, we're busy doing the anti-colonial thing.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

The fourth line in a family tree for the family reads: "EDWIN or HENRY, son and heir, sometime styled Earl of Leicester & Coventry, is said to have assumed the name of TEMPLE from the manor of TEMPLE, near Wellesborough, county Leicester, and is supposed to be Henry de TEMPLE, lord of TEMPLE and Little Shepey, temp. King William I. - that would be late 11th or early 12th century. However, this family tree was prepared in the mid 19th century and I am very dubious about anything prior to about 1500.

There certainly are figures in the family who I can be proud of including all the ones in the NZ forces. But then one of my ancestors ran the East India company and you don't get more colonial than that.