Speeches

Friday, 21 February 2025

Bangka Day Memorial Service

There is something special about this Bangka Day Memorial Service.

It brings together the many distinguished guests already acknowledged by name, but it is relatively rare for such a group of people to gather:

Present are ministers, shadow ministers, members of both Houses of the state and federal parliaments, local government representatives, defence representatives, representatives of veterans organisations and of the many parts of South Australian society, individuals and organisations, which are connected in some way to Bangka Day and are drawn each year to attend this Memorial Service.

So, it is a pleasure, as patron of the South Australian Women’s Memorial Playing Field Trust, to have been invited to speak briefly about what Bangka Day means to me before I present the May Mills grants.

May Mills was a pioneering sports administrator and educator in South Australia who helped to raise the status and opportunities for women in sport.

She helped to establish and develop the South Australian Women's Memorial Playing Fields.

The May Mills Grants hold important historic significance, having been awarded for many decades.

They were first presented by May Mills herself, with money she put aside to support women in sporting and leisure activities.

I’m pleased to play a role in the continuation of these grants.

I speak today from three perspectives:

As a member of the extended Cashmore family

Firstly, stories I remember from my childhood – driving past the women’s memorial playing fields, hockey and fundraising connections (late mother’s papers: reference in my late aunt Dr Helen Jones’ research to May Mills having been elected unopposed as President of the Women’s Amateur Sports Council on 4 Dec 1953) My grandmother Myrtle Grubb then Cashmore played hockey at club level, her sisters Kathleen and Marjorie for SA and her sister-in-law Mabel Cashmore for Australia. Myrtle was SA Hockey Association President in 1954 and was involved fundraising for the Playing Fields.
Secondly, my late grandfather, Arthur Cashmore had a first cousin, Sister Patricia Cashmore, who was born in Port Pirie in 1905 and graduated from Surgical Nursing at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in August 1930. In 1939 Patricia left Australia for England to undertake further specialist study, but while she was on her way war broke out, and she enlisted in the East African Military Nursing Service.
On 5 February 1944 she boarded a troopship, the Khedive Ismail, to sail from Mombasa to Colombo. Seven days later, south-west of the Maldives, the ship was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine. Patricia died at sea.
Today is not the first time her name has been mentioned at this service. At the 2014 service, the speaker Dr Barbara Orchard focused on “the professional commitment of army nurses during the war… and their considerable suffering because of it” and spoke of Sister Patricia Cashmore’s service.
Thirdly, my late mother Jennifer Cashmore, then a Member of Parliament, when proposing the toast at a WMPFT dinner to celebrate South Australia’s sesquicentenary in 1986 said “In establishing the Trust in memory of women who gave their lives in the War, the founders chose playing fields for sport as a project which epitomises both the freedom and discipline that our community so greatly valued during the years of war and still so greatly needs today.” She invited guests to join her in “a toast of tribute to the women who gave their lives for us in the War and to the women of South Australia, past present and future”

As a former diplomat

While serving in and during official visits to Asia, I attended commemorative services and wreath layings in Singapore (Changi), PNG (Burmana), Hong Kong and also at Arlington cemetery in Washington DC, in London and at Villers Bretonneux.
Memory and remembrance. Sacrifice and gratitude

As Governor, this is the fourth occasion I have attended this Memorial Service. Each time, I am struck by the breadth of attendance and the personal and institutional reasons people come, year after year

What Bangka Day means to me is what Bangka Day means to you individually and to all of us together.