Seven to screen academic’s TV episode
Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia
The Seven Network in Australia will broadcast another Anzac Day-themed episode produced in part by an Avondale academic for a Christian television program.
Fighting Mac: the story of William McKenzie is a half-hour episode written for It Is Written Oceania by Associate Professor Daniel Reynaud, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Theology at Avondale College of Higher Education. It will screen on Seven’s digital channel 7TWO at 2.00 PM on April 25.
“Mac became the most famous Anzac by the end of the war,” says Daniel. He never carried a gun or fired a shot. “Through their selfless deeds and heroic ministering, the Anzac chaplains gained the respect and admiration of the soldiers—not by taking life, but by saving it.”
It Is Written will promote an offer of a free monograph written by Daniel and called Faith of the Anzacs during the broadcast of the episode.
Presenter Gary Kent and Daniel Reynaud on location at Gallipoli.
Daniel travelled to Gallipoli in western Turkey with the It Is Written crew to serve as the historical consultant and to appear on camera for each of six episodes. He wrote the episodes. Seven and its affiliates screened a compilation of the first two episodes—as an Angel Award-winning special, also called Faith of the Anzacs—on Anzac Day last year. In New South Wales and Queensland, this preceded the traditional Australian Rules Football match between Collingwood and Essendon. More than 1000 people—a record for It Is Written—requested Daniel’s monograph after viewing the special.
Daniel’s interest lies in the Anzac legend and its representation in early Australian films. He is the author of Celluloid Anzacs: The Great War Through Australian Cinema and The Hero of the Dardanelles and Other World War One Silent Dramas. The former served as the basis of a speech Daniel presented at the Shine of Remembrance in Melbourne last Wednesday (April 11).
Daniel’s work with the National Film and Sound Archive in the recovery and partial reconstruction of several silent films, including The Hero of the Dardanelles (1915), Australia’s first Gallipoli movie, also served him well during a panel discussion on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s RN Drive program the following day (April 12). Host Waleed Aly explored with Daniel and two other guests, one a University of Melbourne lecturer and the other the host of Radio National’s Movie Time, how and why our understanding of history is shaped by the movies.
Fighting Mac
Tuesday, April 24, 2012The Anzac hero who saved not took life
Associate Professor Daniel Reynaud
Dean
Faculty of Arts and Theology
Avondale College of Higher Education
Captain William McKenzie.
Ask Australians to name the most famous Anzac of World War I and most will probably answer, “Simpson, the man with the donkey.” While Simpson is a household name, the soldiers who fought in the war would give a different answer: Captain William McKenzie.
McKenzie served as chaplain of the 4th Battalion. An enthusiastic Christian minister who stood for evangelism and against booze, brothels and bad language, he might seem an unlikely candidate for most famous Anzac of the Great War. But in 1920, McKenzie’s popularity reached its zenith—it would take him more than three hours to reach Sydney Town Hall from his office on Goulburn Street, just three blocks away. People mobbed him just to shake his hand.
A Scottish-born Salvation Army officer, McKenzie’s tireless energy on the soldiers’ behalf earned their respect, while his charismatic personality won their love. He was a born leader with a tremendous sense of humour, a childlike innocence, integrity and constant cheerfulness.
In Cairo, McKenzie not only preached against the brothels but also went to the red-light district at night and literally dragged men out, putting them on a tram back to camp. He expected a knife in the ribs from the brothel owners for ruining their business.
On Gallipoli, McKenzie won the undying respect of the Anzacs. Like other chaplains, he conducted burial services, often under shell fire. But he went further, finding chocolates for each man, or cutting steps into a steep part of a track at night.
At the Battle of Lone Pine, McKenzie should have been in the rear trenches, but he followed the charge, carrying just a spade. He needed it: over the next few weeks, he sorted the living from the dead and buried 450 men. For his actions, McKenzie received the Military Cross.
McKenzie led something like 2000 to 3000 men to Christ during the war. This is what one of his letters, written in Egypt, records: “I realise the nearness of His presence and something of the sweetness and power of His great salvation. I confess that I cried myself to sleep last night or in the early hours of the morning after long meditation over the sacrifices and death of the Christ of God. This I think helped me to read the scriptures and preach the truth better at this morning’s parade . . . when for half an hour some 2000 of us there sang of the Cross and its meaning and pondered over the story once again.”
When McKenzie returned to Australia in 1918, thousands came to see him in every town and city he visited. In Sydney, his feet never touched the ground from the train to the town hall. In following years, at Anzac Day parades, his hand bleed from the sheer number of handshakes he gave.
Some have said the Anzacs were not religious. Perhaps, but McKenzie noted on Gallipoli that many showed an interest in God. He said: “Men realise as never before that the most manly thing to do is to worship and glorify God.”
Tags: Anzac, Commentary, Daniel Reynaud, Faculty of Arts and Theology
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