Turkish Moustaches

The curious case of the disappearing Turkish military moustache

I was recently passing a hot afternoon on a guided tour of the museum at Selimiye Barracks in Istanbul. (No one has ever accused me of being normal.)

I was a kind of support worker on a medical tour. We were from a small cruise boat exploring the eastern Mediterranean. Most of the participants were over seventy and some were octogenarians or even nonagenarians. My role was, in part, to help them on their trip, which was primarily designed to visit museums and the ruined sites of archaeological interest, such as asclepieia (healing centres in the ancient world), and it wasn’t the sort of experience I’m likely to forget.

‘Keith, hold on. I can’t find my hat. I can’t go out in the sun without it.’

‘You’re wearing it, Michael.’

‘Ah, yes, good. That’s a relief... Oh, no, it’s not that! I meant my stick. I need my stick.’

‘I’ll get it for you. When did you last have it, Michael?’

‘I’m not sure. It might be with my passport...’

‘Ok, Where’s your passport?’

‘I’ve no idea. I can’t find my passport either.’

Since we visited Istanbul, Gallipoli, Troy, Pergamum, Ephesus, Bodrum, Kos, Rhodes, Syros, Nafplion, Epidauros, Mycenae and Athens in just a couple of weeks, it was all educational and great fun but pretty exhausting. The trip ended in Athens and I remember 87-year-old Rachel leaning, conspiratorially, towards me and saying, ‘I’m so disappointed I couldn’t make it right to the top of the Acropolis. But I’ve been before, many years ago: and that ouzo bar you took me to last night was much better!’

Back to the plot. When we all leapt from the coach at the barracks – you can picture the scene – we were herded into a waiting area, because Selimiye is an active military headquarters and administrative establishment and under strict army rules. You can only get in with special permission.

(As an aside: everyone has to do military service in Türkiye. For six months. Unless you can afford to pay the equivalent of £5,200, in which case you only have to do 28 days. George Orwell was right, of course. As ever. Some are more equal, everywhere you go.)

Anyway, a very smart-looking soldier was to be our guide. He told us to line up, in ranks of four: we were to proceed, in a militarily precise formation, to the museum building. I wonder if anyone reading this has ever attempted to harness the myriad disabilities of forty aged former medical consultants and dentists along two hundred yards of scorched pathways, keeping them in lines, up slopes and round obstructions? No, thought not - but the image of them scattered like disorientated First World War casualties along what seemed a vast expanse of roadway will linger long in my memory.

Finally inside the museum, we stood respectfully in wide corridors where hundreds of injured British soldiers had lain during the Crimean War (1853 -1856), when the Turks were our allies against the Russians. It used to be called the Scutari Barracks Hospital and was where Florence Nightingale began to establish her reputation, having previously run the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in Harley Street in London.

I’d visited the place before and knew we ended up climbing a short spiral staircase to the room in which the Lady with the Lamp used to work. It is now much as it was then. Her actual carpet and chair are there, as well as her desk, with her notes upon it; and there are extracts from her handwritten writings, framed, on the walls. The view from the window, right to the Bosphorus, is stunning. She would have been able to look down and see, in the distance, wounded soldiers being unloaded from transports at the wharf.

However, it was the room from which you climb to Nightingale’s study that particularly held my attention on this occasion. It serves as a memorial to Turkish soldiers who died in the Crimean War, the First World War and the War of Independence (1919 – 1923), which was fought in a confusing scenario against the UK, Greece, Armenia, France, Italy and the collapsed Ottoman Empire and which established the Republic of Türkiye. Around two of the walls runs a floor-to-ceiling metal frieze of very human moments from the conflicts, and there are free-standing life-size tableaux, including cannons and the men firing them, and Nightingale is there too.

Florence Nightingale and wounded soldier tableau

One moving representation is of a Turkish soldier carrying an injured British enemy from the battlefield in WW1.

In that war, the man who became the greatest Turkish hero, Mustafa Kamal, known as ‘Ataturk’, made his reputation by repulsing the allied forces at Gallipoli, out-marshalling Churchill and his commanders and, after thousands of casualties on both sides, forcing the invaders to withdraw. The remaining British and Empire forces might well have been massacred during the evacuation, but it’s believed the Turks, who had held the heights throughout eight months of fighting, simply allowed them to retreat.

That is credible, because Ataturk was an unusual and special man.

To slightly mis-quote Shakespeare, ‘he bestrid his world like a Colossus’

When independence was achieved in 1923, he founded the Republic and served as its president until his death in 1938. He was forward-thinking and probably as ‘woke’ as it was possible to be back then. He modernised the country, shifting it into the twentieth century and making it westward-looking. Türkiye became a secular state and he introduced equal rights for women. He was revered and still is today. On the anniversary of his death, the country comes to a halt for two minutes at the time he died. Traffic stops and people stand in silent tribute.

As you stare at the frieze and tableaux in the museum, it is instantly apparent you are looking at Turkish soldiers. Some wear the fez – which Ataturk sensibly decided was no way to protect your head in modern warfare, and banned – and all of them, each soldier, sports a luxuriant and mightily impressive moustache, thicker than a ‘Freddie Mercury’ in every case, better harnessed than a ‘Dave Bedford’ (for those who remember the great runner) and perhaps akin to a ‘Graeme Souness’, so they might all have played for Liverpool FC in the late 1970s.

However, in 1923 Ataturk also banned the wearing of moustaches in the armed forces. It was one very small part of his plan to leave the past behind and focus the state on being part of the new world. As a consequence, all the soldiers we saw at the barracks were immaculately clean-shaven. Traditionally, the Turks had believed that his moustache gave a soldier courage and strength; the more prolific the growth, the greater the resilience of the man wearing it. Ataturk told them that when times get tough what really matters is mental attitude and professionalism. You can’t rely on facial hair to bring you victories; especially, I suppose, when the enemy’s armed with machine guns and tanks...

We left Selimiye and Istanbul and all its glories and sailed south through the Dardanelles and away. Our daily trips from the boat continued, of course, and our brilliantly lucid but extremely antique cruisers coped incredibly well and on a daily basis with the difficulties they encountered on the sites we visited: miles of often extremely rough ground and steps and obstacles, as well as intense heat.

At times it became positively gruelling. How did they manage to cope? Well, a coach carried us to the right location, then it was all down to their mental fortitude, I guess. They certainly didn’t rely on moustaches. There wasn’t one to be seen. Michael didn’t have one. Neither did Rachel. And neither did anyone else.

That Ataturk guy knew stuff.

          A moustache, neither bushy nor trim,

          doesn’t add to your valour or vim:
          so Ataturk said -
          sharp focus instead
          was essential, according to him...

Keith Brindle
www.keithbrindlewriter.com

Read More

Old School

I recently asked AI about myself. It told me was I was one of the leading figures in educational developments in the twentieth century, which came as a revelation. I never knew.

Of course, my ridiculous biography said everything about our brave new world and how technology shapes our lives and, apparently, our histories. It wasn’t always like this.

I actually left teaching in 1999 after being a head of English for fifteen years. I found myself one day sitting in a staff training session when we were being introduced to the wonders of ‘white boards’. I remember clutching the piece of chalk in my jacket pocket, feeling like Butch and Sundance must have done as they realised they were part of the past and there was no hope for them in the era to come. Instead of going to Bolivia, I resigned and started a new life.

Back in the twentieth century, everything was so different. I was a teacher in a time when we taught ‘pupils’: ‘students’ back then were studying in HE. We had no idea that in a quarter of a century’s time, every kid would be walking around with a mobile phone, effectively a personal computer, in their pocket and would be doing their work on an electronic tablet. We’d have protested if we were told that every lesson in every subject must follow the same pattern, that all that matters is results and, above all, Powerpoint rules, ok?

I admit at times we wandered into class and asked, ‘Where did we get up to last time?’ or ‘Would you like to watch TV today?’ I admit that on a miserable day, we might have allowed a joke-telling session. I remember a headteacher once catching me perched on my desk doing an owl impersonation for the least able year 11s on a Friday afternoon. But school could be fun. It was about more than just achieving Grade 4. It was also about stimulating kids to think, enjoy learning and, in my case, to enjoy English.

My latest novel, ‘How Was It For You, Mr Pilgrim?’ is about a young English teacher starting out on his career. Set in 1976-77, in a light-hearted way it presents a society, people and schools as they were half a century ago. 

from the front cover of 'How Was It For You, Mr Pilgrim?'

No one could claim that everything was better – for a start, misogyny was rife (indeed, the Sex Discrimination Act had only recently been introduced) – and in many ways the country bore little resemblance to what we have today. There were just three television channels, there was no need to wear a seat-belt, take-away food meant fish and chips…

However, some things never change. Here, our hero, Paul Pilgrim, is doing battle with his most challenging group:

‘OK, there’s a book between two. Don’t fight over them. And you’ll need a pen later. Yes, alright, I’ll find some for all those who haven’t got one. Settle, settle. Shush. Gillian, keep your hands to yourself. And you, Jimmy – especially you, Jimmy. Quiet now, everybody. Come on, settle down. Quiet. This is about a dead soldier who’s been killed in a war in South Africa.’ He began to read: ‘They threw in Drummer Hodge, to rest uncoffined – just as found…’

‘Sir, what the f…? What’s that about? That’s stupid, that,’ Bobby Savage interrupted straight away. ‘He won’t be coughing if he’s dead, will he?’

‘Yeah. It’s rubbish. What’s it mean?’ asked Gail Hudson, as if he cared.

‘Oh dear.’ Paul sighed. He didn’t feel strong enough to survive the battle either…

Discipline, back then, came in very different forms. Not always in a good way. One boy in the novel is complaining because he’s always caned at least twice a week and it’s Friday afternoon and he’s only been caned once and he thinks it’s not fair keeping him waiting for a second beating until the very end of the day.

In this extract, one disgusting boy has been caught making masturbatory gestures at the deputy head of department:

‘Jimmy, you are a bad, bad boy,’ said Allison, standing over him. ‘And you should know that I am not fond of bad boys. They have to be punished.’ In another place, at another time, Paul would have loved to hear her say exactly the same thing to him, but here she was on a different mission.

Widdle tried to lean away but she grabbed him firmly by the left ear. Her long red fingernails bit into his earlobe and she twisted and lifted and the boy rose from his seat.

‘Agh. Agh. Gerroff, miss. Aagh. That hurts. Give up! Stop! Ow! Gi’ up!’

She held him there.

‘And what do you have to say, Jimmy?’

‘Ow. Nothing. Ow. I mean I’m sorry, miss.’

‘Louder.’

‘I’m sorry, miss.’

‘Very sorry, Jimmy?’

‘Very sorry, miss. Very sorry, miss.’

The class was loving it. Several thumped their table in approval.

‘I’m pleased you have apologised, Jimmy, for you have done a thing which is not acceptable. I am also worried that someone from my own class might hear about your disrespect later. So, do you know what we are going to do now?’

‘Agh, agh. No, miss. No.’ He was on his tiptoes and his pug face was even more contorted than usual.

‘We are going to take a little walk to my room so that you can apologise in front of my class too. Is that alright, Mr Pilgrim?’

‘Well, yes, of course, Miss Argent,’ said Paul, unable to take his eyes off the blood which had begun seeping from Jimmy Widdle’s earlobe and was trickling down her nails.

She walked Jimmy from his seat, still on his toes and with his head on one side. She left the door open. The delighted chatter in Paul’s room was drowned by the howls of laughter that greeted Widdle’s entrance next door.

‘She’s great, her,’ said Widdle on his return. ‘And she fancies me. She’ll do anything to get her hands on me, she will…’

If you were around in the 1970s, you might enjoy being reminded of what life, in school and out of school, used to be like. Or what it might have been like. If you weren’t around back then, you might be surprised by what you missed.

An early review of the novel said, ‘It’s full of fond, bawdy scenes, peppered with on-point satire on various kinds of posturing, and an underlying vision that juggles irrepressible optimism with something darker.’ And approval like that made even the author want to read it again.

The book is available in paperback, for Kindle and in Kindle Unlimited. If you want to find out more, take a look at www.keithbrindlewriter.com.

Keith Brindle

Read More