For Those Who Served

Each ANZAC Day offers a chance to pause — whether that’s at the crack of dawn in silence at a service, or under the marquee at Harrup Park sharing a yarn and a laugh with mates over a game of 2-up. However you mark it, this is a day to reflect on the extraordinary sacrifices made by ordinary Australians and New Zealanders, and to remember the stories that have shaped our families, our region, and our identity.

For many of us, those stories are closer than we realise. I’ve walked the poppy-lined fields of the Somme and stood at the edge of ANZAC Cove, feeling the weight of history as I've paid my respect to fallen relatives. My father and husband both served in the New Zealand Air Force and Army respectively, and ANZAC Day has always felt personal. But this year, I want to tell you about my great-uncle Buster Gibb.

Buster served with New Zealand’s R Patrol in the elite Long Range Desert Group during WWII — a small unit that carried out high-risk patrols behind enemy lines across North Africa. His wife Dee wore a wedding dress made from a silk parachute he recovered from a downed German bomb in the Sahara. That story alone feels like a screenplay, in fact it has been made into a movie, 'Lost in Lybia'. But what stayed with Buster most was the camaraderie, the danger, and the unshakeable bonds forged in the desert — a place as vast and harsh as the missions they endured. His tales were never about glory, but about grit, loss, and mateship.

So this ANZAC Day, while we stand still for a minute’s silence or gather for dawn services, remember that the stories we carry forward — as a community, as families — matter. If your family has a tale worth telling, I’d love to hear it. Get in touch.

And after the service? I’ll see you at Harrup Park. I’ll be the one losing at 2-up but winning at conversations with our diggers — which, really, is the whole point.

Lest we forget.

Amanda

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Buster and Dee Gibb on their wedding day — Dee’s gown was stitched from a silk parachute Buster salvaged during a Long Range Desert Group patrol

Alfred 'Buster' Gibb

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