Yesterday it was REMEMBERANCE DAY in Australia, and this year, being the centenary of the commemoration, I attended a few locations.
First we walked up to our local War Mmorial in Fremantle for the annual service and at 11:00 the bugler, a sailor, played the Last post and 1 minute later, Reveille to signify the ending of The Great War. Following on there were addresses by serving servicemen and women, and a wreath laying on the memorial. This memorial has the names of all 847 men who didn't return from that war, my uncle included, and 18 yo lad who copped a piece of shrapnel, 3 months before then end. He's still laying in a grave in France.
In the early afternoon we drove in the city and up to the Sate War Memorial at Kings Park where there was a tribute to the 60000 plus Australians killed in the Great War, it was knitted red poppies installed on the lawns nearby … very moving to see how many lives lost.
Later in the afternoon we attended a concert of Faure's Requiem and one by Benjamin Britten in our Perth Concert hall. The program was broadcast nation wide, and the soloists were on stage in costume, the soprano as a nurse, the baritone as a digger, and the narrator as a German AND there was a Lighthorseman on his horse on stage !!!!!! At the end of the performance we were informed that when it started at 16:00 local time, it was 9:00 in Paris, the same time as the armistice was signed, and when it finished at 18:00 it was 11:00 in Paris, so exactly 100 years since the Armistice.
So that's how I spent Armistice (Remembrance) day here 'down under.
Lest We Forget