Each generation tasked with remembering Gallipoli campaign

The Anzacs at Gallipoli _ next Tuesday is a time to remember and Maori TV does it proud.

A lot has been said and written about Anzac Day and a lot will continue to be said and written about it - which is a very good thing.

It is a time in our history which has to remain firmly in place in the minds of us all, and I am particularly buoyed by the sight of the youngsters who attend the services now, and the schoolkids who so emotionally and eloquently write speeches lauding the brotherhood of the allies and the passion they possessed for what they were sent to do.

I've thought about the battles of Gallipoli a lot through the years and when you sit and read and examine (particularly the grittier photographs) you sort of get a form of battle fatigue despite not having experienced it.

Boy those lads got it tough.

I have asked myself if I could have borne the overbearing pressure of battle and the constant thoughts of possibly (and too often very likely) never seeing home and family ever again and I really don't know.

The age and times I grew into my early 20s made us different young men.

We had stuff.

We had fun and we were not attuned to struggling along.

Life was different so attitudes were different.

The lads in their early 20s of 1914 were, accordingly, very different to we lads of the early '70s, and, I daresay, very different to most lads today.

They really didn't know what was out there, and any chance to travel while someone else was paying the fare was a terrific opportunity.

And hey, word was going around that it would all be over in a few months anyway.

I honestly don't know if I could have done what they did, but then if three or four of my mates had decided to head away for a wartime "adventure" then yeah, I'd probably put the uniform on as well.

In fact I'll retract the start of that last sentence.

Yes, I would have gone.

It would have been the coming back that would have had the biggest question mark over it.

We are unique in the sense that we forged a never-to-be-broken bond with our Aussie mates across the ditch in becoming the "Anzacs".

And we'll proudly bear that forever...and I'll proudly continue to support the VB brewery accordingly.

There are no Anzac veterans left with us today but their devotion to duty and the pain they endured, physically and mentally, should always be firmly entrenched in our hearts and heads - although clearly not everyone's.

In a supermarket the other day while in pursuit of supporting a certain Australian brewery I heard one bloke in that part of the store ask another "what day is Anzac Day anyway...and do we get a day off?"

I almost launched a verbal grenade attack but thought better of it, although I suspect he heard what I said under my breath as I went by.

That doomed campaign of Gallipoli will not be forgotten and what all those involved, troops, medics, bearers, nurses, the lot, went through should always be admired and honoured.

They were heroes all and knew exactly what combat was really about.

Mmmm, we should tell that oddly groomed galah in Pyongyang to spend three or four months on a peninsular without shelter or proper food and under constant fire to try it...rather than sit in his over-staffed palace where he spends all day devising new methods of disposing of people who can't get his much-vaunted missiles to take off without exploding.

The Anzac chaps suffered terribly, for a lost cause.

The Gallipoli Peninsula was not seized by the allies and pretty well overnight the battered troops were shipped out...many of them to a quick break and then on to places like the Somme.

It just went on, and yes, we shall remember them.

As it has in past years, Maori TV devotes everything to Anzac Day.

There are the services (from 5.50am) to the wonderful documentaries, interviews and films.

Pencil in 2.30pm on the day for there is live coverage of the Anzac Cove Service followed by a Waka Huia of wartime songs.

It is a stirring day-long commemoration, and good on them for lest we forget.

● Anzac coverage, Tuesday April 25, Maori TV from 5.50am

● TV1 Anzac coverage begins at 9am and runs through until noon.

ON THE BOX

● Inside the World's Toughest Prisons, Prime at 9.35pm tonight: What a happy documentary.

Here we have a story about the land of Honduras...a Caribbean country with pretty beaches and sparkling beachfront resorts and hotels...and a terrifying crime rate.

Put it this way...the latest statistics reveal there are 400 murders every...month.

That sort of staggering figure clearly underlines the strain the country's prisons are under to keep the offenders locked up.

Don't expect to see exercise programmes in sun-baked yards or three square meals a day being prepared.

There is, indeed, another world out there.

● George Clark's Amazing Spaces Specials, TV1 at 7.30pm Thursday: Apart from the challenges of plumbing (like disposing of bath, dish and dunny water) I sort of like the idea of living on a river.

Not actually "on" the river itself but in a houseboat that can steer across waterways throughout the land.

Except that there are no canals in this land so going up and down the Tukituki week after week in search of a riverside pub or cafe isn't quite the same.

So the boat people of England have it made if that is the way they choose to live, and occasionally travel for that land is criss-crossed with canals, which George profiles here.

Lots of colourful and creative houseboats. Anchors away.