I hate to confess this, but my first attendance at an ANZAC dawn ceremony was last year at the age of 42. I’m actually ashamed of this, that it took me so long to get my act together.
There was always a good excuse, I was sick, the ceremony was too far away because we lived in the country etc.
But last year I awoke at 4.00am to the sound of rain and was about to offer up to myself another excuse not to get out of my nice warm, comfortable bed when I gave myself a resounding mental slap and thought those poor bloody diggers had to go through a hell of a lot worse than a mere drizzle fighting for our country.
So, up I got, proceeded to get rugged up nice and warm, grabbed my umbrella, jumped in the car and drove down to the centre of Newcastle, which is a huge 5 minutes away. I have to say I felt a bit of trepidation as it was dark and what if there weren’t many people around?
Well, how wrong can you be. The city was lit up with the street lights and there were literally thousands of people swarming to Nobbies Beach for the Dawn ceremony.
Words cannot express the energy at that point in time. People were reverent, talking quietly amongst themselves waiting for the ceremony to start. Phones were turned off or put on silent. When the drizzle started as one we all put up our umbrellas and when it stopped, we all put them down. The only sound you could here was the person speaking and me sniffling with tears streaming down my face. I’m an emotional sook but I truly feel the pain of those that have lost loved ones and those that have passed over.
At the end of the ceremony the guns at Fort Scratchley fired to mark the end of the service. Then as one, the crowd turned and waited for the drummers to go past and move on. I thought it would be bedlam with the amount of people there (the news said approx. 2000) that people would be squashed and pushed and shoved, but again, I was wrong. As one the crowd just moved forward, no pushing and shoving trying to get away first, everyone talking and laughing and just a beautiful atmosphere.
It was the first but it won’t be the last one that I attend.
If you haven’t as yet, attended a dawn service, you really should. It’s haunting, emotional but worth every moment.
Lest we forget.