The Tweed remembers
Thousands of residents showed their support on Anzac Day.
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IN an impressive show of support for the spirit of the Anzacs, the Tweed Heads Dawn Service at Chris Cunningham Park attracted one of the biggest crowds attending in the past five years.
More than 3000 people of all ages joined veterans and dignitaries for the service with the sun rising over the Tweed River as a backdrop.
At the main service later in the day, residents young and old turned out in droves despite dreary conditions to pay their respects to those who have sacrificed their lives for our country.
Thousands lined the streets as veterans, emergency services and school's marched down Wharf Street towards the memorial service on the banks of Jack Evans Boat Harbour.
Tweed Heads & Coolangatta RSL Sub-Branch Secretary Dr John Griffin told the crowd the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who landed at Anzac Cove at dawn on April 25 1915, "had no idea that they were creating a legend that would remain with us all today and in the years to come".
Federal Richmond MP Justine Elliot, who laid a wreath at the service, said it was an honour to "pay tribute to those who served our nation".
"Of course today marks 104 years since Australia and New Zealand soldiers landed on the beaches of Gallipoli in the first world war, and each year on Anzac Day we pause to remember all of those who serviced in all of the wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations," she said.
"On this Anzac Day, I want to pay tribute not only to the veterans, but to those who support them and their families, in particular, I wish to acknowledge the Returned Services League of Australia, and especially here today, the Tweed Heads Coolangatta sub-branch for the remarkable work that they do."
Mrs Elliot said their work was very much part of the "Anzac spirit" and the concept of "mateship that we celebrate today".
Tweed River High School student Emily Bradford said Anzac Day remained as important as ever in 2019.
"If we don't remember and we don't honour, then those 8141 lives would have been wasted, we must remember these lives that were lost at Gallipoli, we must remember the 216 days that these men fought for our future," she said.
"We must remember Gallipoli and all wars that Australia has fought in, because if we forget that, then we've lost who we are."
The service was ended with a wreath-laying ceremony, The Last Post, and a rendition of both the Australian and New Zealand national anthems by the Lindisfarne Anglican Grammar School Choir.
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