Strong support continues for Anzac Day in Moorabool

THOUSANDS of people turned out for Anzac Day services and other activities in the Moorabool Shire last Saturday, with officials generally pleased with the continuing interest in the date.

Bacchus Marsh RSL president Alf Hawken described the turnout for local Anzac Day activities as “fantastic”, and while his Ballan counterpart Pippa Morris said school participation was slightly down this year, Anzac Day had lost none of its standing in the community.

Hawken estimated that 3,000 people attended the dawn service and about 100 veterans and others participated in the march from the hospital to the RSL headquarters.

He said the fact that Anzac Day fell on a weekend for the first time in many years had had no effect on participation.

“It didn’t make a scrap of difference,” he said. “I reckon we had the same people, the same sort of people, and it was really well received.”

Hawken said an Auslan interpreter was present for the service, during which local ex-serviceman Shane Layt projected a series of images onto the RSL building.

“He was able to project photographs from the first world war right through to Afghanistan on the wall of the RSL hall during, before and after the dawn service,” he said.

“We did it to a small extent last year, but bigger this year; a lot bigger.”

 

Hawken also thanked the local SES for providing the gunfire breakfast.

Morris, meanwhile, said she believed the weekend date could have affected numbers – particularly for primary schools, which had returned for term 2 just days earlier.

“There were less people, I think, being on a Saturday,” she said.

“People tend to go away on weekends, and also the bigger thing was probably that there was the school term break…and they’d only returned to school a week before Anzac Day.

“We normally invite all the local primary schools to participate in the services, but this year we only had a couple of schools; the others I don’t think were able to organise what we’d asked them to do in time.”

 

Morris said about 120 people turned out for the dawn service in Blackwood, about 80 at Myrniong and 250 for the Ballan event.

She said about 300 attended the afternoon service at the Ballan cenotaph, while about 50 people participated in the march led by the Ballan Light Horse Troop.

 

Morris said even though school participation was down, children from the Myrniong and Gordon schools read out thank you letters written to past Australian and New Zealand defence forces personnel.

“At the Ballan dawn service we had the Ballan Primary School (students) read their letters,” she said.

Morris said she was generally happy with how the various services and events went, making particular mention of a high number of people enjoying the CWA-catered afternoon tea at the Ballan headquarters after the cenotaph service.

 

“The interest in Anzac Day services is still quite strong,” she said.

Regional MPs Michaela Settle (Eureka) and Sam Rae (Hawke) and most Moorabool Shire councillors also attended the cenotaph service in Ballan.