General News
12 May, 2024
2024 Armatree ANZAC Day Dawn Service
Armatree’s ANZAC Day Dawn Service is as moving as it is consistent. Click to see our website for photos.
Armatree’s ANZAC Day Dawn Service is as moving as it is consistent. Around 100 people attended the service at the Armatree Cenotaph and War Memorial on Thursday, April 25 which was followed by breakfast at the CWA rooms. This year’s attendance figure is matched year after year, Jenny Bradley reported.
Mrs Bradley delivered the address at the service and it was a speech tinged with sadness about what many young men, and sometimes children, sacrificed. The key subject was the youngest serviceman in World War I, Private James Charles (Jim) Martin. Jim was just 14-years-and-nine months-old when he died at Gallipoli. “It takes a lot of courage to do what those who served did,” Mrs Bradley told The Gilgandra Weekly after ANZAC Day. “It was a huge sacrifice.”
Others to speak at the service were Hannah Peart (Let Us Make Commemoration of The Fallen), Ben Mudford (Prayer to The King), Kaitlin Younghusband (the Prayer of Thanksgiving) and Mitch Cosier (the Prayer for the Nation). Douglas Malone performed the flag raising.
The service ran smoothly with Ted Charnley and his daughter Karen Charnley organising proceedings. Barry Malone was the master of ceremonies while ‘The Last Post’ was played by local bugler Rosemary Duncan. Some who fought for their country at some stage and still remain also return to share stories and knowledge.
Gware Green, who served in the Vietnam conflict, was in attendance. One former serviceman, Keith Morgan, travelled from South Australia to be at Armatree. It is an annual trip he makes to remember his father who was an electrician at Gulargambone.
Armatree has some notable war history with a lone pine planted in honour or corporal Alexander Henry Buckley VC, who was killed in action in the World War I. The tree is accompanied by a polished granite monument. A resident of Armatree when he enlisted, Buckley was posthumously awarded a Victoria Cross (VC).
After the dawn service, there was a breakfast at the CWA rooms afterwards which Marie Ferguson helped co-ordinate. And in tradition, a few sips of rum were had at the breakfast.
The dawn service suited many farmers perfectly who were back on their tractors that afternoon. In the afternoon, there was two-up at the Armatree Hotel, for those not tied up on the land.
