District Anzac services will be popular

---

JULIA WADE

 

11 April, 2022

 

One of New Zealands most revered days is on the horizon with three local events set to take place for ex-service personnel, community services and citizens to pay respect, honour and remember the many who served and sacrificed in wars, conflicts and through duty.

With Covid’s spread starting to recede, Anzac Day’s auspicious April 25 dawn service commemorations are also welcomed back to Gallipoli, Turkey, after a three year hiatus caused by the pandemic in 2020, and will be attended by a select contingent of NZ Defence Force personnel and other agencies.

 

Anzac on Alamar
Mangawhai’s serene estuary will again be the setting of the areas second dawn service, after 2021’s inaugural event proved popular with those who attended. Last year the strong crowd of 90 were visibly stirred by the ceremony, especially when the poignant Last Post resounded in the morning dusk as the sun rose over local waters.

Organised by local former service personnel and MC’d by Vietnam veteran Dave Chisholm, last year’s 45 minute service was Mangawhai’s first official dawn parade, which included speeches, wreath-laying and an unusual touch of dramatic and moving sound-effects.

Fortunately, the echo of marching boots, cannon fire and bagpipes in the wee hours of the 2021 service roused no negative comments from startled, woken neighbours, event spokesperson Chisholm said.

“We only got positive feedback and I still get people coming up to me at the Club asking if we’re going to have it again as it was so good.”

Held in Alamar Reserve, the stretch of grass along the same-name roadside, the service is expected to begin around 6.10am, with plenty of parking at Sellars Reserve by the estuary’s public toilet. Refreshments will be provided for the ex-service personnel after the service – ‘a time for us to swap war stories’. Everyone is welcome.

Anzac on Alamar, April 25, Anzac Day. Begins around 6.10am at Alamar Reserve, please arrive from 5.30am, parking at Sellars Reserve. PHOTO/FILE

 

 

Hakaru RSA Anzac Day
East Kaipara’s long-standing Anzac ceremony at Hakaru RSA, known for its moving service which attracts crowds in the hundreds, will go ahead again this year. However the parade will be missing enlisted service personnel who have been asked by New

Zealand Defence Force to attend ceremonies only on military bases to help stop the spread of Covid to senior retired veterans.

Hakaru RSA president and renowned local piper, Barry Wallace, says falling in will be from 10.30 in the morning with formalities of speeches, wreath laying on the cenotaph, revered silence and Last Post to commence from 11am. Refreshments will be available after the service in the RSA.

Usually leading the parade with his poignant bagpies, Wallace will not be able to march this year due to a ‘crook leg’, however he will endevour to still play or ask one of his students to step in, ‘at the very least there will be a drummer leading the parade’.

“It is difficult still to arrange events due to Covid... unfortunately there will be some serving people missing, but we’ll do our best with whoever is there and have our service,” Wallace says. “We are still expecting representatives from local police, army cadets, St John, council members and local schools. Every family will have some family member involved with a military operation over the years and the ceremony is for everyone.”

Anzac Day, April 25, Hakara RSA Settlement Road, Hakaru. Gather at 10.30am, with official ceremony to start at 11am. PHOTO/FILE

 

 

Maungaturoto RSA ceremony
A dawn service is also planned to place in Maungaturoto at the towns Soldiers Cemetery in View St, next to the Centennial Hall.

Maungaturoto RSA president Graeme Bond says the half hour ceremony will begin at 6am before ‘a muster at the RSA for refreshments’.

“We will not be requiring vaccine passes and there will be a light lunch available around 12 o’clock for those that want it. All welcome.”

---