{"id":174206,"date":"2025-11-07T04:00:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T17:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/?p=174206"},"modified":"2025-11-06T13:36:38","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T02:36:38","slug":"committee-for-lorne-honouring-our-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/news\/committee-for-lorne-honouring-our-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Committee for Lorne: Honouring our past"},"content":{"rendered":"

Honouring our past<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Oxford English Dictionary defines \u2018honour\u2019 [Australian and UK spelling<\/em>] or \u2018honor\u2019 [US spelling<\/em>] as signifying:<\/p>\n

… Great respect, esteem, or reverence received, gained, or enjoyed by a person or thing; glory, renown, fame; reputation, good name.<\/p>\n

Honour is a noble word, and one that is nearly as old as time itself.\u00a0 Indeed, the fourth commandment as found in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy reads: “Honour your father and your mother” and means \u201cto treat them with respect, value, and esteem, even if you disagree with them\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the age of G.O.A.T. [G<\/strong>reatest O<\/strong>f A<\/strong>ll T<\/strong>ime] culture\u2014a term that originated in the sports world but, in the digital age, has started to infect an increasingly wide range of pursuits\u2014other descriptive terms like \u2018hero\u2019, \u2018legend\u2019, \u2018icon\u2019, and \u2018champion\u2019 have been so tossed around that their meanings have become debased and only hold until the next GOAT comes along.<\/p>\n

While an American author and podcaster, Todd Kashdan wrote in a 2025 essay titled \u201cHonor: An Outdated Virtue\u201d [https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/4pazcz3j<\/a>] \u00a0that \u201c… <\/em>honour culture is a fascinating relic, an evolutionary glitch that keeps persisting even though modern life has largely outgrown it<\/em>\u201d, <\/em>I could not<\/u> disagree more.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Kashdan had eaten something that caused the gripes! Maybe he is just mean-spirited after rising from the wrong side of the bed.\u00a0 But contrary to his view, I think \u2018honour\u2019 is a gentle and wise word that is far from out-of-date … indeed, it is one of the few that still signifies unchallengeable respect and reverence.\u00a0 Long may that be so.<\/p>\n

Why, then, this long preamble?\u00a0 Well, plans are well afoot\u2014courtesy of the Lorne P1-12 College, to return honour to Lorne and revive the Avenue of Honour that once traversed the current Stribling Reserve.\u00a0 But don\u2019t worry, Dolphins, you won\u2019t have to dodge and weave through a plantation of trees … the kids have selected a new site that will make the town proud.<\/p>\n

While similar concepts of planting trees for remembrance exist elsewhere, the sheer scale of and specific history attached to the Avenues of Honour are uniquely Australian.\u00a0 Frequently seen lining the main thoroughfares in rural and regional towns and cities, they are distinctive symbols of civic pride, reverence, and remembrance, with each tree representing a person from that town who served in World War I.\u00a0 Many still bear a plaque with the name of the individual serviceman they commemorate, and there is great local civic pride in maintaining the trees and their markers.<\/p>\n

The tradition originated in Victoria\u2019s Goldfields as an egalitarian way to honour our World War I servicemen, but quickly spread across all states and territories to become an integral part of our Australian culture [https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/2s3py4rx<\/a>].\u00a0 On ANZAC Day, we march and remember\u2014but usually on that day alone.\u00a0 However, as we drive [often daily] down an avenue of memorial trees that touch overhead in a tunnel of green, we also remember\u2014but the reminder is constant and tangible.<\/p>\n

While most living memorials are actual avenues, some are individual trees. Several \u2018lone pine\u2019 plantings commemorate the solitary tree on the Gallipoli Peninsula, which marked the site of the Battle of\u00a0Lone Pine<\/em>\u00a0in August 1915, while Gallipoli oaks grown from acorns brought home by survivors, one-sided rows of trees, memorial copses, and groves are all carefully curated.<\/p>\n

One remarkable site that documents every known memorial avenue can be browsed at https:\/\/avenuesofhonour.org\/<\/a> and features some intriguing interactive maps that show the extraordinary impact the Avenue of Honour concept exerted in regional Australia.<\/p>\n

Those who now desecrate our major cities with their protests would do well to drive Ballarat\u2019s extraordinary 22-kilometre Avenue of Honour with its 3912 trees\u2014or visit any of the other 547 known avenues across Australia … it might prove a sobering experience.\u00a0 Victoria alone has more than 300 avenues across the state.<\/p>\n

Avenues also commemorate the other wars in which Australians have fought and died. These include Victor Harbour [SA] and Mickleham [Vic]\u2014among others\u2014who honour our WWII veterans; Hindmarsh [SA] and Samford [Q], which commemorate those who fought in the Korean conflict; while closer to home, North Geelong honours our Vietnam veterans with a cenotaph and a named avenue of native gums along Melbourne Road.<\/p>\n

Lorne established its own WWI Avenue of Honour on 14\/10\/1919 to commemorate WW1.\u00a0 An avenue of red gum trees, each marked with a metal plaque commemorating a local who served, was planted diagonally across \u2018Library Paddock\u2019 and led down to a cenotaph on the school corner.\u00a0 In October 1921, the Birregurra Times reported that \u2018… the fifty red flowering gums were looking healthy, and the brass plates commemorating the Lorne men who made the supreme sacrifice were in position\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

Later, when the football ground was relocated from the foreshore to its current site at Stribling Reserve, the sacrifice of the trees was keenly debated by the town.\u00a0 While the cenotaph was relocated to its current position on Mountjoy Parade, the trees and plaques were removed.\u00a0 Sadly, the plates have been lost, but the names are all known and are now fuelling a new project of discovery for the kids at the school.<\/p>\n

In 2025, one of the school\u2019s teachers, Cheri Osta, initiated a project to re-establish the Avenue of Honour on the school grounds.\u00a0 The \u201cLost Lorne Avenue of Honour Project\u201d will enable students to remember the struggles of those who served\u2014many of whom were the forebears of our current student body\u2014and to embed the memory of their sacrifice for future generations in a tangible, practical way. \u00a0It is hoped that the planting will help reconnect the school community with its history and, through researching their stories, help our kids better understand the human cost of war.<\/p>\n

Avenue of Honour at Smith St Lorne P-12 College \u2013 Work in Progress<\/em><\/p>\n

New name plates will be designed that feature an embedded QR code.\u00a0 This will allow the individual stories of each serviceman to be told.\u00a0 By researching the lives of each serviceman as part of their history, environmental science and design studies, the students will be able to explore how war shaped the health and well-being of the town the men went to war to preserve.<\/p>\n

The Lost Lorne Avenue of Honour Project plans to:<\/p>\n