Anzac Day services replaced by home vigils in Australia, NZ
25 April, 2020
Traditional crowds at dawn services for the Anzac Day memorial visit to Australia were replaced with candlelit vigils in driveways and neighbors gathering to hear buglers play “The Last Post.”
Restrictions on crowds and social distancing due to the coronavirus meant that the most common packed dawn services in cities and towns in the united states were not held. The vacation, also celebrated in New Zealand, marks the anniversary of New Zealand and Australian soldiers, known as Anzacs, landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915.
A lot more than 10,000 soldiers from both countries were killed throughout that World War I campaign in what’s now Turkey, although Anzac Day honors those killed in every wars.
In the national capital Canberra, Prime Minister Scott Morrison spoke at a crowd-free commemorative service held in the Australian War Memorial. A didgeridoo sounded the start of the service.
In the Sydney suburb of Wahroonga, trumpeter Lewis Ketteridge, 8, and French horn player Grace Colville, 16, were among twelve brass players playing “The Last Post” from their driveways at dawn before 40 residents observed a minute’s silence.
“Strangely, it managed to get more moving that persons were still ready to commemorate Anzac Day rather than just letting it pass,” said resident Catherine Colville.
She said the community carefully maintained social distancing as they placed candles, pictures of serving ancestors and wreaths of native leaves and flowers under an Australian flag hanging on a tree.
Marches and gatherings were canceled for only the 3rd time - the last amount of time in 1942 and previously during the devastating Spanish flu outbreak of 1918.
In New Zealand, where even tighter crowd restrictions are in place, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stood at dawn on the driveway of Premier House, the leader’s official residence, for a ceremony.
Thousands around New Zealand participated in the “Stand at Dawn” initiative, and in a single Christchurch suburb, bagpiper Tom Glove greeted the families that gathered at each driveway with a rendition of “Amazing Grace.”
Source: japantoday.com
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