BATHURST should take great pride in the fact that the disgusting graffiti painted on the Boer War Memorial on Thursday afternoon was cleaned away before Bathurst RSL Sub Branch president David Mills even knew it was there.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
And that's exactly as it should be. Rather than standing around complaining about how shocking the desecration of the memorial was (and it was), cleaners instead got straight down to the job of getting rid of it before too many people saw it.
It's not the first time one of our city's war memorials has been vandalised and, sadly, it probably won't be the last.
The reality is there will always be idiots with paint who don't care how much the rest of the community might respect one public place or another, but we'll leave it up to the law to deal with them.
What the rest of us should focus on is the pride our community takes in the memorials along Kings Parade and the sacrifices they represent.
We should be proud that our most treasured memorials stand in the middle of a public park where people can enjoy them, inspect them and respect them.
They are pieces of public art, they are local landmarks and they form an important part of the fabric of Bathurst.
We do not want to see such memorials locked away in order to keep them safe from the mindless few. And if that means the occasional graffiti attack, then that's a small - but infuriating - price to pay.
What's comforting to know is that if such attacks occur, the graffiti can be washed away much more quickly than our memories of what these memorials stand for.
One person's disrespect counts for nothing in the broader scheme.
