Diplomat-turned-musician Fred Smith to honour veterans at Geraldton Anzac Day ceremony ahead of national tour

After serving 27 years as a diplomat in Indonesia, South Asia, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea and Afghanistan, Fred Smith feels an immense bond between himself and Aussie veterans. This year, the diplomat-turned-singer/songwriter is set to give the main address at the Anzac Day service at the Geraldton City RSL Branch ahead of his Sparrows of Kabul tour in June, which also includes a Geraldton performance. The address is a nod to his time spent overseas, in war zones, where he gained inspiration for writing and war became his muse. In 1979, at the age of nine, Smith picked up a guitar and began to play. Eventually at 18 he found himself performing various gigs covering songs in the clubs and bars of Canberra. But he arrived at a fork in the road. “I was choosing between a promising career as a diplomat and an unpromising career as a folk singer,” Smith said. “I never really solved that dilemma”. Not long before releasing his first album at 27, Smith joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 1996. Now 53, he has multiple national tours as a musician under his belt, and countless international tours as a diplomat. He said his address at Geraldton’s Anzac Day ceremony would be about “the importance of understanding the stories and experiences of our soldiers overseas”. “Thirty thousand Australians served in Afghanistan and it’s very important we understand their stories so they don’t walk the land as strangers like the generation of Vietnam veterans did,” Smith said. Smith was working on the evacuation of Kabul Airport in 2020, when the Taliban were taking over the capital city of Afghanistan. He said that through out this, writing “became an outlet and probably a coping mechanism when you’re putting things down on paper. It’s better out than in.” ”It helped me make sense of it all,” he said about his experiences abroad. In his shows, Smith uses song and prose as a medium to tell the stories of veterans, after living alongside soldiers, and witnessing the glory and pain first hand. ”I was there with the soldiers living among them, sharing shipping containers with them,” he said. Smith said the exceptionally strong bond formed between one another, was sometimes through tragic circumstances. “They protected me, they came with me every time I went outside of the wire. You never went out without 12 of your closest friends. Every now and then a solider would be killed, and you would grieve with all of them,” he said. Passionate about veteran advocacy, and telling the stories of those who have seen war first hand, Smith’s upcoming national tour is a vivid personal account of Australia’s 20-year involvement in Afghanistan. He hopes to educate his audiences on veteran experiences. “People have said to me that they learnt more on Australia’s involvement with Afghanistan in my two-hour show than they’ve learnt from 20 years of media coverage,” Smith said, a true testament to the stories he shares. The collaboration between Smith and The Geraldton City RSL is to encourage younger veterans to make use of the RSL. Smith will be performing at Queens Park Theatre on June 24. For more information, visit https://au.patronbase.com/_QPTheatre/Sections/Choose?prod_id=23SK&perf_id=1