ANZAC Day in New Zealand is always held on 25 April, although we also observe Remembrance Day, but not to the same degree. It is a public holiday, with shops and pubs not allowed to open until 1pm.

 

Just as dawn is breaking, at 6.15am, our Dawn Parade gathers at a place called Millers Acre, including the Army, Navy and Air Force Cadet Units. While still dark, we march at a leisurely pace for less than a kilometre down to Anzac Park where our local War

Memorial is located. For the Dawn Parade occasion, it is supplied with microphone and amplification gear as there can be around 1,000 people in spite of the early hour.

 

 

Anzac Park Memorial

 

This year, the weather was unusually fine and mild and stayed that way, when normally it is chilly, being late Autumn here. However, this year was the biggest turnout I have ever seen for a Dawn Parade with at least 1,500 who climbed out of bed to watch veterans from three wars stumble along in time with a very large pipe band at 6am. There is a short service as dawn is breaking, followed by a volley of shots and the playing of The Last Post by a bugler (or more probably a trumpeter as there aren’t too many buglers

around anymore!) I usually lay a wreath for Bomber Command as ‘the last man standing’ with my son Greg doing it with me. Ten to fifteen wreaths are laid around the base of the Memorial. Then we’re off to the RSA where breakfast is laid on for anybody, not just Service people; who want to partake, including a sort of egg and ham hamburger affair.

 

At 10 o’clock, there is another service for those disinclined to crawl out of bed in the dark. All the old vets have a march past and the streets are lined with people. But at the Club there were a couple of young chaps (one from Norfolk would you believe!) compiling a

history of men who served in the 1939-1940 war, so they collared me. I asked them how many more they had found that day and they said ‘Four’. Oh dear, we are certainly a dying breed, in the truest sense of the word! All the others who marched with us were either Korean or Vietnam vets.

 

Next year will be the centenary of the Gallipoli battles in the First World War when and where Anzac got its name. That will be something very special, I have little doubt about that.

 

by John Beeching

 

 

This article is from the Winter 2014 issue of Confound and Destroy