Anzac Day
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday March 31, 2011
How did the dawn service come into being? Gather close, exhorts Peter FitzSimons, and discover the beginning of a great Anzac Day tradition.They'll be there again this Anzac Day in that first flush of dawn, gathered around the Cenotaph in Martin Place in their thousands. The old men and women with their medals; the young ones come to honour, listen and learn; the families and well-wishers. There'll be marches, speeches, prayers, hymns, wreath-laying, the Last Post and, most moving of all, the Ode of Remembrance. Bow your head with them now, as they recite it. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.At the going down of the sun and in the morning,We will remember them.And, of course, all over the country, from Penrith to Perth and the Gulf to the Bight and all the way down to the southern tip of Tassie, much the same scene will be played out. And yea, it all started, the whole wonderful tradition, right here at this Cenotaph in Martin Place in the wee hours of Anzac Day morning, 1927 and ...And listen. Can you hear it? While Sydney is quiet as the grave, you and I can hear the sound of voices approaching. Laughing voices, merry, maybe even tipsy. There ... see? Five men are coming down George Street. Big men, mostly in their early 30s. Probably veterans of the Great War ... yes, definitely veterans. You can see by the way they move, the tightness they have with each other. These are men who have fought together through that war - through such places as Gallipoli, Fromelles and Ypres - and have met for a reunion on the eve of Anzac Day. It has gone so well they are still at it. They talk easily, laugh a lot, remembering the good times and, yes, talk too of the blokes who didn't make it, didn't survive and still lie in foreign fields. And look now, they've suddenly stopped. Not for you and me. For in this silent watch of the night, they have spied an elderly woman standing in front of the as-yet-unfinished Cenotaph and now laying a sheaf of flowers upon it, in memory of her son, who didn't come home. Quietly, one of the men goes up to her and asks, "Would it be all right if we stand with you?"And so they do. Five returned soldiers and an elderly woman, standing in the cold night air with their heads bowed, paying their respects to the woman's son - and every mother's son who didn't make it home.An idea takes hold then and there and, at the next meeting of the Sydney chapter of the Australian Legion of Ex-Service Clubs, one of the men moves a motion on behalf of them all. Why not have a dawn service and wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph every Anzac Day, starting at 4.30am, the same time the Diggers hit the beach at Gallipoli? All those in favour, say aye. Aye, aye, aye, aye-aye sir, and it is done. And so it goes. In 1928, just 150 people turn up but the next year it is nearly double that and by 1931 the respect-paying crowd numbers about 2000, including the state governor. It is something, all right. ... and in the morning, We will remember them.
© 2011 Sydney Morning Herald
