WARKWORTH & DISTRICTS RSA

March 26, 2018

With Anzac Day rapidly approaching, many people remember deceased relatives by wearing their medals.

Here is some information from NZDFs medals and personnel team about the correct way to wear them.

The rules governing medal wearing in New Zealand, known as the Order of Wear, specifically allows family members to wear medals of deceased ex-service personnel on the right side of the chest for national days of memorial.  This includes Anzac Day (25 April) and Armistice Day (11 November), as well as other military events where the host has added the note – “medals may be worn”.  This includes reunions, formal dinners, funerals of veterans, and the like.
   

Conventions for wearing a relatives' medals include:

• Civilian members of the public should only wear one set of medals. The medals should be those of a direct relative, for example, should have belonged to a brother or sister, dad or mum, grandfather or grandmother.  In all cases these are worn on the right chest.  

• If there are more than one set of relatives medals held by the family, pass on medal sets for other family members to wear – this spreads the memory of that relative amongst the family. There are no rules that say only the eldest male descendent can wear these medals – the family can decide on any family member to be the medals wearer on the day.

• Multiple copy medal sets can be worn by the family on Anzac Day - this is common with miniature medals so all children of a deceased veteran can wear his or her medals in their memory. 

• Only service medals and decorations mounted on a medal bar (full-size or miniature) can be worn by a relative.  It is acceptable to wear a family member’s miniature medals mounted on a medal bar if preferred. This is a good option for young children.

• Royal Honours insignia such as neck badges, sashes, sash badges, or breast stars cannot be worn by anyone other than the original recipient. The same rule applies to any Unit and Personal Commendations that the deceased wore on their right chest.  
   

For more information about medals please go to http://medals.nzdf.mil.nz/

March 26, 2018

The acronym ANZAC was coined in 1915 when Australian and New Zealand troops were training in Egypt. The word ANZAC was eventually applied to all Australian and New Zealand soldiers in World War 1. The term is particularly associated with the landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. ANZAC Day was inaugurated on 25 April 1916 to commemorate the first anniversary of the landing of the ANZAC troops at Gallipoli.

During World War 1 and World War 2,  The wives, mothers and girlfriends were concerned for the nutritional value of the food being supplied to their men. Here was a problem. Any food they sent to the fighting men had to be carried in the ships of the Merchant Navy. Most of these were lucky to maintain a speed of ten knots (18.5 kilometres per hour). Most had no refrigerated facilities, so any food sent had to be able to remain edible after periods in excess of two months. A body of women came up with the answer - a biscuit with all the nutritional values possible. The basis was a Scottish recipe using rolled oats which were used extensively in Scotland, especially for a heavy porridge that helped counteract the extremely cold climate.

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The ingredients they used were rolled oats, sugar, plain flour, coconut, butter, golden syrup or treacle, bi-carbonate of soda and boiling water. All these items did not readily spoil. At first the biscuits were called Soldiers' Biscuits, but after the landing on Gallipoli, they were renamed ANZAC Biscuits.

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A point of interest is the lack of eggs to bind the ANZAC biscuit mixture together. Because of the war, many of the poultry farmers had joined the services, thus eggs were scarce. The binding agent for the biscuits was golden syrup or treacle. Eggs that were sent long distances were coated with a product called ke peg (like Vaseline) then packed in air tight containers filled with sand to cushion the eggs and keep out the air.

As the war drew on, many groups like the CWA (Country Women's Association), church committees, schools and other women's organisations devoted a great deal of time to the making of ANZAC biscuits. To ensure that the biscuits remained crisp, they were packed in used tins such as Billy Tea tins. You can see some of these tins appearing in your supermarket as exact replicas of the ones of earlier years. Look around. The tins were airtight, thus no moisture in the atmosphere was able to soak into the biscuits and make them soft.

During World War 2, with refrigeration in so many merchant navy ships, the biscuits were not made to any great extent as it was now possible to send a greater variety of food such as fruit cake.

ANZAC biscuits are still made today. They can also be purchased from supermarkets and specialty biscuit shops. Around ANZAC Day, these biscuits are also often used by veterans' organisations to raise funds for the care and welfare of aged war veterans.

Compiled from information supplied by the CWA, Brisbane, the War Widows Guild, Brisbane and Queensland State Headquarters of the RSL

A Favourite Recipe

1 cup rolled oats 
1 cup plain flour 
1 cup sugar 
3/4 (three-quarters) cup coconut 
125g (4 oz) butter 
2 tablespoons golden syrup 
½ (half) teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 
1 tablespoon boiling water 
Combine oats, sifted flour, sugar and coconut. 
Combine butter and golden syrup, stir over gentle heat until melted. 
Mix soda with boiling water, add to melted butter mixture, stir into dry ingredients. 
Take teaspoonfuls of mixture and place on lightly greased oven trays; allow room for spreading. 
Cook in slow oven (150°C or 300°F) for 20 minutes. 
Loosen while still warm, then cool on trays. 
Makes about 35.