Children push for service presence

For one Edendale family, it was the children who pushed their parents to attend their Anzac service.

Farmers Paul McCullough, a returned serviceman, and Charlotte Chalman attended yesterday’s service with their children Claudia McCullough, 7, and Elliot Chalman, 9.

It was the children who had pushed to come to the service, Chalman said.

‘‘It’s hard farming. Some years we can’t get here,’’ she said.

McCullough served in East Timor in 2000 and Afghanistan in 2001.

It was becoming more and more frequent to see young people at services, he said.

‘‘I think it’s important they remember the sacrifice made.

‘‘It’s something we need to have, otherwise Anzac is just going to become another holiday.’’

Edendale’s Anzac service drew a large crowd to the war memorial on State Highway 1.

It appeared McCullough’s children weren’t alone in their desire to attend the Edendale service.

Children and young people outnumbered the old.

As people gathered for the service, polite, quiet morning greetings were exchanged, many knowing one another from the small rural town.

Just before 9am, Fonterra workers from the nearby plant walked over to join the crowd, dressed in their hi-vis jackets.

Southland district deputy mayor Paul Duffy led the service, calling upon groups and individuals to lay a wreath.

When the RSA, which mixes with the Mataura RSA, was called upon, it did not have a wreath to lay on the memorial.

Someone in the parade happened to have a tulip which was laid in place of the wreath, an emblem Duffy said was quite fitting given they were in the Edendale district.

After the service, Duffy said it was usually the RSA who organised the service but there had been several members who had passed away in the past year, and another group had organised the service.

The organising of getting a wreath on behalf of the RSA had got lost in translation, he said.

Meanwhile, Mataura’s dawn service started with a call to attention from Parade Marshall Owen Patterson, led by a pipe band.

The parade moved in quiet contemplation around the corner towards the town’s war memorial.

Age has not wearied the learned practice of marching for some of the returned servicemen in the parade, their arms never falling out of rhythm to the beat of the drum from the pipe band.

Mataura man Shishonie-Rei Newton, 22, was among those at the service and was the first one to gather - by accident.

‘‘I thought it was at 5am,’’ he said.

‘‘I thought I could come down and pay my respects, it’s the least I can do.’’

After his two-hour wait for the service, his fears that it had been cancelled were dispelled as more people, and many families, started to arrive.

Newton had come to the service by himself, leaving his 2-year-old son at home to sleep but said he didn’t think there would be so many young families at the service.

‘‘It’s probably the most people I’ve ever seen in Mataura,’’ he said. Next year he will be making an appearance at the service, with his son as well, he said.