Coronavirus Australia: At the rising of the sun, we will honour them … on this DIY Anzac Day of remembrance

For the first time in a century, there were no marches or crowds. But that hasn’t stopped Australians. | PHOTOS, VIDEO

On any other Anzac Day, former soldier Paul Johnston would be marching with his mates, as his proud wife Catherine applauded from the sidelines.

And army bugler Christopher Canning was supposed to sound The Last Post at Isurava on the Kokoda Track, where Diggers ­famously stood their ground in the darkest days of World War II.

But this is an Anzac Day like no other, overshadowed by the battle against COVID-19.

For the first time in a century, there will be no marches or crowds, no coming together for the dawn service, and no rowdy games of two-up at the RSL.

Son up early to #LightUpTheDawn with his trumpet, while family and neighbours stood in remembrance pic.twitter.com/m2Vvzx6hqS

— Mark Drano (@Drano2go) April 24, 2020

Instead, it’s the DIY Anzac Day, made more poignant by the new ways people have found to take part in the nearest thing a ­laconic country does to hand-on-heart patriotism.

Mr Johnston, 51, decided that if he couldn’t attend the Shrine of Remembrance in Brisbane’s city centre, he would bring his own candlelit memorial service to Catherine in riverside New Farm.

Watch live coverage of the national commemorative dawn service for Anzac Day in Canberra here.

Posted by The Australian on Friday, 24 April 2020

“It’s just something that I ­needed to do,” the former gunner said. “I decided to put the candles and wreath out this week, and the reaction has been amazing.

“People are just chuffed that there’s still stuff going on for Anzac Day. A lady came up to me with tears in her eyes and said: ‘Thank you for your service’.”

At dawn this morning, a lone bugler called out from the steps of the Sydney Opera House.

This special #AnzacDay commemoration was part of the RSL's #LightUpTheDawn initiative to show our support for veterans and families across the nation.#LestWeForget
Photo by Dan Boud. pic.twitter.com/fvfyL5Jznh

— Sydney Opera House (@SydOperaHouse) April 24, 2020

Before he took up the bugle full time with the army band in Brisbane, Mr Canning, 34, was an ­infantryman with a combat tour in Afghanistan to his credit. He was to have walked the testing track to Isurava in the PNG highlands and would have stood at dawn at the granite memorial to those “ragged bloody heroes” who checked the Japanese onslaught in 1942.

Then the coronavirus intervened, forcing all but the National Ceremony in Canberra and some ­limited state services to be axed.

The Crabb and Provan families hold an Anzac Day dawn service on their driveway at Zamia Street, Holloways Beach in Cairns. Picture: Brendan Radke

Nothing, however, would stop him playing The Last Post when the sun rose on Saturday morning. Standing in his driveway, back ramrod-straight, the mournful bugle notes pierced the still air. Watching from their balconies and their ­verandas, his neighbours hugged sleepy-eyed children and bowed their heads.

“I think it’s a good opportunity for people to individually reflect on what Anzac Day means,” he said.

Alex Sit, Carmelina Kannelmae, Gabrielle Sit and their children Theodore and Liila Moelder-Sit honour the Anzacs during a dawn driveway service at Elanora on the Gold Coast. Photograp: Jason O'Brien

From one end of the country to the other, Australians have pulled out the stops to do Anzac Day for themselves. At the instigation of the RSL, many joined Mr Canning in an early-morning driveway vigil, sharing the minute’s silence that brought to a close the live-streamed dawn service from the Australian War Memorial.

James Morrison plays the bugle at dawn overlooking the city ahead of the Anzac Day in Mount Gambier, South Australia, Friday, April 24, 2020. Picture: Morgan Sette/The Australian

In Fremantle, the last Australian stop for overseas-bound troops in World War I and World War II, locals decked windows and letterboxes in blossoms and replica poppies to replace ceremonial wreath-laying.

I’ve never done much more than wave at my neighbours. Yet here we are standing at dawn, wordlessly connected through Anzac Day #LestWeForget #AnzacSpirit #LightUpTheDawn pic.twitter.com/lew85qi4si

— Ellie-Marie Watts (@E1MaWa) April 24, 2020

Radio station 2AY in Albury, NSW, pre-recorded its own dawn and mid-morning services complete with MC, chaplain and bagpiper. The North Shore Mums group in Sydney has been swapping recipes for Anzac biscuits. While at South West Rocks on the NSW mid-north coast, they’ve sent care packages filled with Vegemite, Milo, Tim Tams and other treats to defence personnel deployed overseas.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.
The Last Post performed by MLC musicians.#LestWeForget #DrivewaysAtDawn #AnzacDay #TheLastPost #LightUpTheDawn pic.twitter.com/gkdMftBDhA

— MLC Claremont (@MLCClaremont) April 24, 2020

At 6am sharp in the chilly ­national capital, deputy chief of the army, Major General Tony Rawlins, was in the front yard with his wife Sarah and their nine-year-old son Zachary, doing their bit for the RSL’s Light Up the Dawn initiative. “We are trying to enliven the spirit and purpose of Anzac Day,” he said.

Mr Johnston said he was thinking of the friends he had lost both on active duty and through the ­lingering aftermath of service-­related trauma. Since leaving the army in 2016 after 30 years in the artillery, he, too, had struggled with PTSD. Thank God Catherine was there for him, along with their two children, Melissa, 24, and Christopher, 19, he said. “My wife deserves a medal … the whole family does,” Mr Johnston said quietly.

But that wasn’t all he had in mind when he lit up his makeshift memorial every evening this week.

Nick Bryan of the Essendon Bombers AFL team stands in his driveway to commemorate Anzac Day in Melbourne.

Anzac Day 2020 was different, a chance to recognise the service of everyone who wore a uniform — be it khaki, police blue or all the hues of medical scrubs.

“COVID-19 has really changed the dynamic,” he said. “Of course we should remember the Anzacs and all the soldiers who came after them, but it’s a good time to think about the doctors and nurses, the ambos, and the police.

“We can put our hands on our hearts and say thank you to them. They’re in the hospitals, out on the streets, working their arses off, soldiering on for the rest of us.

“If that’s not the Anzac spirit, I don’t know what is.”

Ms Johnston, 50, couldn’t be more proud of her husband. The military tradition is ingrained for both of them: her grandfather, Noel Donaghy, was also a gunner who saw action in PNG in World War II, while Mr Johnston was a fourth-generation soldier deployed in the East Timor intervention in 1999.

“Anzac Day is something we have always shared,” she said.

Anzac Day like no other. 97 years old... airforce veteran #LightUpTheDawn pic.twitter.com/GJQ8LnWdew

— Maria Lenz (@riaxxx97) April 24, 2020

“It makes me proud as a wife to see Paul and his mates catch up, how they look after each other. This year it’s a bit different, but the thought is still there.”

Mr Canning said: “It’s still Anzac Day. We have got people in Afghanistan, in the Sinai, in Iraq; there are subs and ships out in the oceans patrolling. We need to remember their service and that they are away from loved ones.”

Anzac Day in Vernonia Avenue, Kellyville. Picture: Troy Kidd

Major-General Rawlins said only Spanish influenza in 1919 had stopped Anzac Day being observed on the streets, though the threat of Japanese air attack in 1942 had halted many services.

And, yes, there was a “tinge of disappointment” that events had been cancelled due to COVID-19.

“But I think it’s matched, in equal measure, by the excitement and pride that even on this Anzac Day, we are still doing our duty to ­protect Australians,” he said.