When I was child my father would occasionally attend memorial events. He was a member of the RSL and the ExPOW association. He would occasionally attend the annual Anzac Day march in Melbourne.

He would have attended more if my mother had allowed him. She had a fear that somehow he would be led astray by others in these organisations and that he would start drinking, as had members of her own family when she was child. If my father came home from an RSL meeting more friendly than he normally was, she would be angry rather than pleased. If he was late home, she would panic and in time resort to near hysteria. It is fair to say that my father was a sober thoughtful man who only had proper reasons for joining these organisations, but my mother was eternally vigilant. She had no sympathy for him having a good time. She did not understand his desire to look after his fellow veterans – although that term did not eventuate until the Vietnam War. But he did have genuine concern for his fellow ex-servicemen.

My father might have attended the Anzac Day march on average every three years. Sometimes he went on his own. Mostly he insisted that the whole family went. This also caused trouble with my mother because she did not like leaving home and definitely did not like staying at someone else's house. My father always arranged for us to stay with ancient relatives who did not have children. He was well thought of by his relatives who more or less seemed to treat him as a war hero and made him welcome at any time.

My father joined up as soon as the UK declared war on Germany. He did his training at Caulfield Race course. He and my mother were married when he was in uniform when they were both 21. Shipped to Singapore early in the war, he enjoyed Singapore and always spoke well of it. He never left it. When the Japanese invaded it was all over in a week. A POW for three and a half years, he never left Changhi. He survived, came home and, because he had enforced savings, he had enough money for the deposit on a farm.

I don't know what prompted him to join up. Was it patriotism? Or more mundane reasons. He had never had a permanent job. He gave his occupation on his joining up papers as 'driver' because he had once had a job driving a truck for the Council. This was the only real job he had ever had and this didn't last long. Mostly he was a rural farm worker working on seasonal labouring jobs. His father had died when he was 14 years old and, in the scheme of things in those days, he was farmed out to live with relatives. He never again lived with his mother until he was an adult with his own house.

But perhaps he did have some sense of patriotism. He had had relatives who had served in the First World War and he seemed very close to those who had survived.

On the day of the march my father would park my mother and us children near the end of the march – within sight of the Shrine. He would then go off to the assembly point which was near the CUB building at the end of Swanston Street. This was the highlight of his day. He would meet people he served with and they would march together. We would stand and watch the whole march. My father was always near the end. What happened during the March was sometimes interesting. Sometimes boring because there were a lot of people marching and they were not always interesting. Sometimes they wanted you to cheer and said so. I witnessed my first brawl in the crowd when one old person suddenly attacked a young person claiming they were insulting veterans. I saw an obviously drunk man going around telling people they should be clapping him – insisting on it. When my father came in sight my mother would get us to clap and my father would invite us children to join the march.

Suddenly we went from standing still to marching in format. We went from standing still to stretching our legs.

Because we were near the end of the March we didn't have far to go, but it was interesting seeing my father interact with other people in a way he normally did not. There seemed to be a lot of banter and in jokes – none of which I understood. Some of the other men would take what seemed a great interest in me. They would pat me on the back and ask about my well being. Some would put their arm on my shoulder. They were all dressed in their best clothes. I remember one joke that caused a lot of laughter. Two of them were carrying a flag or banner of some size and when we arrived at the Shrine, where the marchers did a U-turn to disperse, someone yelled out – "Don't lower the flag until you see the whites of their eyes".

For some reason this caused mirth. Maybe they were Air Force, but I don't think so.

My father's friends did not linger at the breakup point. They all shook hands with each other and wished each other well. There was no hugging. There were no speeches. Just goodbyes.

Suddenly we were back with my mother and on our way to the car. It had been a long day and suddenly everyone was tired.

We had a long drive home. My father did not like to be away from milking for more than one day.
​

Neville Gibb
​May 2022

Anzac day in Goorambat was always a solemn occasion, the ex-servicemen would go to Benalla to march at 10.30 a.m and to attend the R.S.L. service at the cenotaph.

Back in Goorambat, I was instructed to raise the flag that was flying at half-mast to the top of the flagpole at 12 M.D. as per the Anzac Day instructions in the Australian flag book. Then on their return they would gather for an hour or so at the Goorambat Hotel.

But in 1982 Anzac Day fell on a Sunday and the hotel would be closed! The publican said he would open unofficially for an hour just for the ex- servicemen.  We sat quietly behind closed blinds and doors while they had their own private reunion.

I observed the quiet close bond between them. On that day they had unspoken private memories that we who had not experienced those times could not share. It was their day.
Then someone suggested they should each buy a bottle of whisky!

My friend Flo looked at me in alarm. “We’d better get back to your place quickly and start cooking. They’re going to need a lot of food.“

The close band of merry makers arrived an hour later at peace with the world and radiating goodwill but their numbers had grown. Amongst others we had the publican and friends. A family who had moved to Goorambat that day who we didn’t know occupied the couch smiling at us, while an ex digger wearing an army  slouch hat sat asleep on the floor under a large pot plant for a couple of hours.

Flo and I passed food around frequently, hoping to preserve the equilibrium. The Anzac spirit prevailed and the afternoon was full of smiling unspoken mateship and quiet good cheer.

I don’t know how many people fell off the front veranda when they left. Just walked out of the front door and kept going and measured their length on the front lawn, each one saying, “I missed the step!” There were no steps there!

The stragglers stayed on for tea but didn’t seem hungry by then and the last one, a younger man who had seen active service in Vietnam left reluctantly at 3 a.m.

Those days are long gone and things have changed.

This year, Anzac Day in Goorambat has a different flavour. The flag flies at half mast at Victory Park as usual and no one bothers about a flag book.

The memorials to those who lost their lives in the two World Wars and Korea have been given a face lift and small white crosses have been placed along the path for the occasion.  I notice tourists who have come to admire the silo art wandering in there and standing solemnly for a while.

After midday there are several cars in the park and as the last post rings out from my neighbours TV, a small group of people are sitting on chairs around the memorial having their own private service.

Next door to the Park lunch is being served in the new Diggers Wife’s Café that is run by the Goorambat Veterans Retreat based at the closed Goorambat School.

Those Goorambat World War veterans are no longer with us and Anzac Day now belongs to the people.

On Anzac Day 2021, I am proud to think that I was given a special insight into that original day of remembrance and what it meant to those who had given so much to preserve our way of life.      
                                                                                                     
Bev Morton
​April 2021

The word ANZAC conjures up a vision of fresh faced eager young men from Australia and New Zealand, who were excitedly volunteering for some great adventure on the other side of the world. The catch phrase at the time was, “We’ll be home for Christmas”, this phrase has come to haunt the peoples of our two nations, down through the decades
.
To this end, I am concentrating my writing of two of these young men. They are my Paternal Uncles Sgt Walter Harold Lowing MM [1879-1916] and Major Bertie McAdam Lowing MC and Bar [1891-1937].

Both Walter and Bertie, with their Father William Alfred Lowing, along with their father’s friend Henry [Harry] Harbor Morant, joined the New South Wales Mounted Horse and left for the South African War, where they served; both young men were awarded the Queen’s & King’s South Africa Medals.

In 1914, Walter and Bertie joined the 1st AIF and served at Gallipoli in the 6th Light Horse Regiment; Walter then was sent to the Western front, where he served with gallantry and was awarded the Military Medal, before he died of wounds at the Battle of Poziers on August the 6th 1916. He is interned in the Warloy-Baillon war cemetery in Picardie, France.

Bertie, on the other hand was shipped back to Egypt inorder to join the 12th Light Horse regiment and was involved in many of the Middle Eastern Campaigns, including the Sinai Desert, Gaza, Romani and was in the historic charge of  Beersheba, where he was awarded the Military Cross, when under heavy shell and machine gun fire he destroyed an important Turkish defensive position, which then allowed the remaining Light Horse to capture the town and it’s water wells. Some weeks later he was leading a raid at Samekh, Palestine, when with conspicuous gallantry and skilful leadership, he was awarded his 2nd Military Cross, when he overcame stubbornly Turkish resistance, he finally subdued the enemy with vicious hand to hand fighting, this led to the capture of the garrison at Tiberias with the surrender of twelve officers and eighty three other ranks as well as thirteen machine guns.

Before I end, I must pay homage to the unsung heroes of the Middle Eastern Campaign, never mentioned in dispatches or given awards of bravery, but without them, the victories would never have happened.

So, I have penned a few lines, to their valour.

David Lowing
​April 2021

​
THE COURAGE OF THE HORSE:
On the plains of Tel el Saba, on that day in nineteen seventeen,
There was bravery and courage, that is very seldom seen.
Not about a soldier, but a different type of being,
A four legged Australian “Whaler”, you know the type I mean.
Like the one that carried the Man from Snowy River,
That stockman’s gallant steed.
Not your normal type of pony, no, an incredibly special breed
Who never knows the meaning of failure, only to succeed or bleed!
 
For it was the charge on Beersheba, that brings these thoughts to mind.
The Fourth and Twelfth Light Horse were ordered, to capture Beersheba’s watery prize,
Or face a thirsty situation that nobody could deny.
That evening, the men ate bully beef and biscuits.
And the horses, their oats, through snaffled mouths and nosebags
For both had forty miles to cover, before the morning light.
Chauvel that gallant Lieutenant General, he rode there alongside.
For every man, hailed him a hero and they rode with him, with pride.
For on their first arrival at Beersheba’s distant sights,
They were welcomed by a hail of shells and bullets, but no steed was put to fright.
 
Chauvel cried mount up, mount up and fix bayonets for the ride.
Say goodbye to all your mates for you’ll not be making a repechage.
So across that rocky plain, for three long miles they must ride.
At a full stretched gallop, to take the Turkish trenches in a stride.
Those eight hundred wild colonial boys, riding as they had never rode before
With shells bursting around them and bullets sending messages to the fore.
Before they leapt the trenches one by one and the fighting was hand to hand.
Until the foe was vanquished and the prize was won, those wells of Beersheba.
Now they would make the way to Jerusalem, far into the setting sun.
 
And those still left standing, slackened girths and surcingles, with a sigh.
And rolled out the canvas water troughs, so their steeds could slake their thirsts.
And the tired Australia horsemen, strokes the neck of his old steed,
Well done, well bloody done, my dear old gallant mate, for you are supreme. 
 
His commanding officer, Colonel Harold McIntosh once remarked, “Bertie Lowing is a capable and sound military tactician, a fearless officer and a very brave friend”. 

David Lowing

My early recollections of ANZAC day centre on the trip to Melbourne.  My father would go to the march assembly point, while my mother would take me up to the road leading to the Shrine.

We would wait until the march came by and listen to the many bands that would play as the men and women marched.  As my father’s unit approached, I would run out and join him to march the last one hundred metres or so, up to the Shrine forecourt.  In those days many of the children marched with their parents for the last section leading up to the Shrine of Remembrance. In later years my father attended the ANZAC Day march in nearby Epping, with a much shorter march and only the returned servicemen and women participating.

I did not serve in the military.  My birth date fell outside the National Service ballot. I did however, have a number of friends and work colleagues who served in Vietnam. I became very disillusioned with the way the majority of the population were influenced by a noisy minority, resulting in the disgraceful treatment of our men and women when they returned from Vietnam. Fortunately, in later years, the rhetoric from this noisy minority has been ignored, and the younger generations are now showing respect for the past and current returned military service personnel.

My father and his two brothers all served during the Second World War.  My mother had a brother and sister who also served. Whilst my mother did not serve in the military, she did work at the munitions factory at Maribyrnong during the war.  Fortunately all returned home safely, but the later years would reveal that whilst they did not have any significant physical scars, they all had mental scars of varying degrees, which for the most part went untreated.

During ANZAC day I like to take some quiet time to sit and reflect on what these service people did for our country. Yes, in many cases they fought battles on distant soils, but the process that they went through ensured that we enjoy the freedoms we have today. I also like to sit and reflect on what the families of the service people who did not return went through. I think about the wives, the mothers and fathers, the grandparents who dreaded the knock on the door from the postman or the telegram boy.

I think about the anguish that the family went through when they realised that there was now a void in their family that will never be refilled. I think about how shattered wives with young children must have been, to learn that their husband had been killed and will possibly be buried in a distant land, away from a family farewell.

I think about the mothers, who in some cases not only lost their husband, but also their sons. I think about the father whose succession plan for the family was snuffed out by the death of his son or daughter in a distant land.

I also think about how the families coped with the issues that the returning ex-service men and women tried to grapple with, largely unassisted. The manner in which these returning people were left largely to their own devices was very disappointing. The impacts will be felt for generations.

​Barry O’Connor.
Benalla U3A.
April 2020.

Laurence Binyon

Laurence Binyon's poem sums up the spirit of ANZAC.   Celebrated on April 25th, Anzac Day is the anniversary of the first major battle fought by Australian and New Zealand forces.  It commemorates  the  landing at Gallipoli Peninsular in Turkey where the soldiers hoped to capture Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman empire and an ally of Germany.

As the ANZACS landed they met fierce fighting from the Turks. Both sides suffered huge losses, Australia lost 8000 men. Many of these were young lads, so keen to go to war, they had put up their ages  to enlist. To them,  war and defending their country was a big adventure - little  did they know of the tough conditions ahead, living in trenches, enduring cold wet conditions or heat and dust, not to mention diseases.  I remember my grandmother having a photo of four lads from one family in uniform (her cousins), I don’t know if they all returned.

On ANZAC day we commemorate the lives of not only  Australians and New Zealand soldiers who fought in 1914-18 war, but  WW2, Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan veterans who have given their lives for their country.

Services are held in every town, in their Memorial Halls or other memorials, wreaths are laid and soldiers march. In Violet Town we always had a service with representatives from returned soldiers and local churches. The services always followed the same order - hymns and prayers, wreath laying, a minutes silence and the haunting last post and the rousing reveille, and always our national anthem. Red poppies and rosemary, which grew wild on the Gallipoli Peninsula, formed part of the ceremony.

When in Melbourne I attended the Shrine commemoration.  It was very moving and impressive, with large numbers in attendance to see the returned soldiers march up St Kilda Road.

For the first time, this year there were no public services due to COVID19, but lots of informal street  observances  of the  occasion, and TV services without attendees.  We have not forgotten, and the youth of our country will carry on the tradition. 

Lest we forget.


Margaret Nelson
April 25 2020

I have been to many ANZAC Day services but the most memorable was ANZAC Day, Lake Taupo, New Zealand in 1977.
 
I was there as an ANZAC Fellow representing Australia.  I organised my participation in the march with the local President of the Returned Serviceman’s organisation.
 
Although the 24th of April had been a balmy day at Lake Taupo, the dawn service the next morning turned out to be the coldest I have ever experienced, despite my wool suit.
 
ANZAC Fellowships are awarded to people in Australia and New Zealand who display exceptional prowess in their field of work who, by visiting each other’s country, expand their knowledge and share his knowledge within their profession when they return to their home country.
 
Standing in my shoes, instead of some wool lined work boots, trying to concentrate on the service, I was shivering like an autumn leaf about to fall when I realised this must have been how those young soldiers felt in the trenches of Gallipoli.
 
Fellowship, which is a sharing of aims or interests, should be encouraged by both countries throughout their communities as the sharing of information is a binding and lasting experience.  There are very few ANZAC fellowships awarded each year.  In fact there was only one awarded in Australia the year I applied, mine being for Agricultural Education. 
 
I found in my working life that the ANZAC Fellowship exposed me to a range of subjects and tasks that I might not have had the opportunity to develop working on my own. This experience, it appeared to me, was similar to the experience of the ANZAC soldiers all those years ago when facing their adversaries. 

​This fellowship also carries the potential to extend goodwill amongst the troops and their leaders in better satisfaction of the ‘job at hand’.
 
In my case, when I returned to Australia I wrote a report for the Committee and further developed the Farm Apprenticeship course at Benalla Technical School.
 
While I have always thought the many and varied ANZAC services were to commemorate the fallen soldiers in battles to protect Australia and therefore us, I find many of the present commemorations very jingoistic in nature and no longer go to ANZAC services.  I do, however, plant red poppies in our garden to give a fine display during November for Remembrance Day.
 
As far as I know, Anzac Fellowships are no longer given by Australia or New Zealand, which is a shame as it was a strong way of continuing that bond of fellowships between our two countries. 


Godfrey Marple
May 1916