Joan O'Regan outside her home in Haberfield today which she decorated with Australian Flags for Anzac Day.
Picture: Tim Hunter.
We will remember them at home: Anzac Day 2020
On an ANZAC Day like no other, the sound of buglers solemnly playing the Last Post has rung out across the city as commemorations moved to driveways and cul-de-sacs, while a small but solemn service has been held at Hyde Park. LIVE COVERAGE
On an Anzac Day like no other, the sound of buglers solemnly playing the Last Post at dawn has rung out across the city, as ANZAC day commemorations moved to driveways and balconies.
From the steps of the Sydney Opera House where a lone burglar played to cul-de-sacs and streets in suburban Sydney, young and old have paid tribute in private, quiet ways to veterans past and present.
RSL NSW Acting President Ray James said he was proud of how veterans had understood the need to suspend services for the first time since 1919, at the time of the last great pandemic.
“Many of you are saddened that Anzac Day services cannot be held in the way they normally are,” he said on Saturday.
“(Veterans) have realised the welfare and safety of the community at whole is important. Just because we cannot gather on our traditional Anzac Day services does not mean we do not remember and commemorate those who died and those who served.”
Australia’s largest dawn services held in Sydney’s Martin Place, and North Bondi, were replaced by a small, solemn affair at the Hyde Park Cenotaph.
Just a few people showed to pay their respects, including Mr James, a bugler and vocalist, the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian who read a WWI poem, and NSW Governor Margaret Beazley.
In her telecast address, Ms Beazley urged the public to make this year a special, reflective Anzac Day.
“Let us look forward to the warm handshakes, the proud countenances and the camaraderie which we will enjoy again” she said.
“The connection and the commemoration is different but howsoever different, let us remember them. Lest We Forget.”
She laid a single wreath at the Hyde Park Memorial and paid tribute to WWII veterans as Australia marks the 75th anniversary of the end of that conflict.
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ANZAC spirit alive and well in Sydney
WELCOME TO THE DECIDER
95-year-old WWII veteran Tom Knox doing a lap of honour to a standing ovation in Mona Vale. Great stuff. #LestWeForget pic.twitter.com/7pSqioNaqC
— The Mole (@9_Moley) April 25, 2020
SPIRIT OF ARTIE
Vietnam veteran David Buckwalter poses for a photograph after reading The Ode and having a drink for his fallen mates on Anzac Day at The Royal Australian Regiment Memorial in Sydney.
David served with 6 Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR) in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967 and usually attends the dawn service and march each year, but with marches and commemorative services cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions, he decided to come alone and place a sprig of rosemary, read The Ode and have a solitary drink for his fallen mates.
Picture: AAP/Dan Himbrechts
Vietnam vet raises a glass to absent mates
Vietnam veteran David Buckwalter poses for a photograph after reading The Ode and having a drink for his fallen mates on Anzac Day at The Royal Australian Regiment Memorial in Sydney.
David served with 6 Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR) in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967 and usually attends the dawn service and march each year, but with marches and commemorative services cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions, he decided to come alone and place a sprig of rosemary, read The Ode and have a solitary drink for his fallen mates.
Picture: AAP/Dan Himbrechts
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js95-year-old WWII veteran Tom Knox doing a lap of honour to a standing ovation in Mona Vale. Great stuff. #LestWeForget pic.twitter.com/7pSqioNaqC
— The Mole (@9_Moley) April 25, 2020
How you can still play two-up today
For the first time in Anzac history, Diggers won’t be able to come together and circle around for a spin.
Instead, those like retired navy hero Ray James, will be joining video calls or gathering the family at home to play the game fortified by mateship and camaraderie.
Two weeks after a 15-year-old Mr James (pictured) joined the navy in January 1965, he was down on the docks immersed in his first game of two-up. It would be the first of many during an illustrious career which has garnered eight medals, decorations and commendations.
“I’ve had a total of 46 years in the defence force, 20 in the full-time navy,” the 71-year-old says.
“I served in Vietnam and I had 26 years in the reserves while I was a member of the police force. I remember playing two-up at Garden Island where the navy ships were based. It was illegal but you’d always find a game of two-up somewhere. Every time you sailed overseas and deployed when you were ashore, somebody always had a couple of pennies and a wooden board to play two-up.”
A gambling game, two-up is illegal to play on every day except April 25 each year.
“It was a game that was played, especially with our Diggers overseas during the great wars,” Mr James says.
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With Australians today only able to commemorate Anzac Day from the end of their driveways, it seems fitting for a ghostly recreation of one of post World War I’s most famous paintings.
“Menin Gate at Midnight”, painted by Ballarat born artist Captain Will Longstaff in 1927 and once shown at Buckingham Palace for King George V, honours ghosts of fallen soldiers from the Empire during the Great War.
The painting, housed at the Australian War Memorial, cannot be seen this Anzac Day with coronavirus closing out crowds at commemorations at the national institution as well as around the country.
Ghosts of Diggers a fitting ANZAC tribute
With Australians today only able to commemorate Anzac Day from the end of their driveways, it seems fitting for a ghostly recreation of one of post World War I’s most famous paintings.
“Menin Gate at Midnight”, painted by Ballarat born artist Captain Will Longstaff in 1927 and once shown at Buckingham Palace for King George V, honours ghosts of fallen soldiers from the Empire during the Great War.
The painting, housed at the Australian War Memorial, cannot be seen this Anzac Day with coronavirus closing out crowds at commemorations at the national institution as well as around the country.
Last post sounds for soldiers at rest
Able Seaman Racheal Byrnes, Royal Australian Navy Band Sydney, performing the Last Post in the the Hall of Silence at the Hyde Park Cenotaph today.
The Last Post is sounded at military funerals and commemorative services to indicate that having completed a life's work, a soldier is now at rest.
The silence is broken by the Reveille, which comes from the French word meaning to wake up.
It is sounded at commemorative services to signal the rising of spirits for another day.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has opened the NSW ANZAC Day commemorative service by reading a poem at the Anzac Memorial, Hyde Park, in Sydney.
Written by soldier Leon Gellert, who served as a private in the 10th Battalion Australian Imperial Force, he was wounded at Gallipoli.
Evacuated to Malta and London, he wrote the poem, The Last To Leave.
The guns were silent, and the silent
hills had bowed their grasses to a gentle breeze
I gazed upon the vales and on the rills,
And whispered, "What of these?' and "What of these?
These long forgotten dead with sunken graves,
Some crossless, with unwritten memories
Their only mourners are the moaning waves,
And thus I mused and sorrowed wistfully
I watched the place where they had scaled the height,
The height whereon they bled so bitterly
Throughout each day and through each blistered night
I sat there long, and listened – all things listened too
I heard the epics of a thousand trees,
A thousand waves I heard; and then I knew
The waves were very old, the trees were wise
The dead would be remembered evermore
The valiant dead that gazed upon the skies,
And slept in great battalions by the shore.
Lest we forget
Picture: Image from Charles Ryan's collection, which features some of the most graphic and important images from the Gallipoli campaign.