By JESSE GRAHAM
HUNDREDS of Healesvillians braved the cold weather for this year’s Anzac Day Dawn Service, gathering en masse at the RSL while stars were still visible in the sky.
Seats were quickly occupied, and the standing crowd filled the RSL car park as commemorations officer, Bob Gannaway, began the service with groups laying commemorative wreaths.
He then spoke about one of the town’s soldiers who served in World War I, James Gordon Harris, who was born in 1886 and lived at Coranderrk in Healesville.
Mr Gannaway said that Harris enlisted on 21 November, 1917, and was posted to the 59th Australian Infrantry Battalion.
“It was with this battalion on July 4, 1918, at the Battle of Hamel, during the advance … that James was killed in action – he has no known grave,” he said.
“However, his name is honoured and commemorated in the province of Picardy in France, on the Australian National Memorial. “
Healesville High School principal, George Perini, spoke about Frank Oliver Loader, a solider killed during the Battle of Fromelles, but missing for more than 90 years and identified by DNA in 2009.
Yarra Ranges Councillor, Fiona McAllister, meanwhile, spoke about Clifford Ashburner, whose body is buried at Healesville Cemetery.
Clifford served in the Boer War, World War I and World War II, enlisting for the army at the age of 12.
“Words fail me, as a mother of a 12-year-old, to try and imagine what the horrors of trench warfare must have felt to a 12-year-old – yet he still went on to serve two more wars,” Cr McAllister said.
The sun rose following speeches from Healesville High School captains, Ally Melville and Chenile Chandler, the reciting of The Ode and The Last Post being played by bugler, John Stanhope.
Shortly before 10am, large crowds gathered in Healesville and Yarra Glen for the Anzac Day march, followed by the morning service.
In Yarra Glen, residents lined the streets to cheer and applaud the march, led by Dixons Creek Fire Brigade, with Girl Guides’ Rose Morris, Niamh Gilligan and Eleanor Newell as flag-bearers.
Rosemary Bowling read excerpts from notes of Lance Corporal Ernst Albert ‘Snowy’ Hubbard, who was wounded by a bomb at Lone Pine, before a performance of The Spirit of the Anzacs by the Yarra Glen Primary School Choir and speeches from guests and school students.
Students from Yarra Glen, Yering, Dixons Creek and Christmas Hills Primary Schools spoke, with Dixons Creek’s Connor Fallon delivering a powerful poem he had written, from the perspective of a WWI Digger.
The day finished up with a hymn from Reverend Jennie Gordon, and a sausage sizzle for the Anzac Appeal, and, for another year, those who left the valley to fight for their country were remembered.
