< Back
Date
I would like to share my experience on ANZAC Day 2020. My partner and I live in a semi rural area with lots of tall gum trees and native fauna. We decided to participate in a drive way ANZAC 'service'. We wandered down to our driveway and there was a small group of neighbours also in their driveways all listening to the service being broadcast by the ABC on their phones.
In one driveway, one group of neighbours had a fire burning in a small fire pit. At the end of the service a lone bagpiper plays The Lament and as it came time for this to happen one of the neighbours who plays the pipes, started playing The Lament as he walked out into the middle of the road. He was dressed in his pipe band regalia, everyone turned off their phones and we listened to him playing that haunting tune.
So there we were, in this strange time of COVID19, standing in the soft morning light, amongst the gum trees, with the smell of the smoke from the fire, as 'our piper' played. To my left hand side stood a wallaby mum and her joey watching (with interest?). As he finished a couple of magpies perched up in the trees starting their carolling.
I know there are many stories of unusual ANZAC services around Australia but that was ours. It was very moving, unusual, and very peaceful. Our thoughts went to those men and women who gave so much.
In one driveway, one group of neighbours had a fire burning in a small fire pit. At the end of the service a lone bagpiper plays The Lament and as it came time for this to happen one of the neighbours who plays the pipes, started playing The Lament as he walked out into the middle of the road. He was dressed in his pipe band regalia, everyone turned off their phones and we listened to him playing that haunting tune.
So there we were, in this strange time of COVID19, standing in the soft morning light, amongst the gum trees, with the smell of the smoke from the fire, as 'our piper' played. To my left hand side stood a wallaby mum and her joey watching (with interest?). As he finished a couple of magpies perched up in the trees starting their carolling.
I know there are many stories of unusual ANZAC services around Australia but that was ours. It was very moving, unusual, and very peaceful. Our thoughts went to those men and women who gave so much.