Lest we forget

Armistice Day commemorations started at 6am in Whanganui, but it was the 11am gathering at the cenotaph on Queen’s Park hill that drew the largest crowd.

Crosses, wreaths, a piper, a small brass contingent with a bugler, and speeches remembering the dead were the order of the day. There, while tu¯ ı¯ squabbled in the trees, we noted that which took place 100 years earlier, on the 11th hour, of the 11th day of the 11th month. An armistice to end the war to end all wars.

Old soldiers, their chests decorated in ribbon and metal, stood ramrod straight during The Last Post.

After the ceremony, a group of local aircraft, including Richmond Harding’s replica Spitfire and yellow Tiger Moth, flew over, and the bells of St Paul’s rang out around the city.

A small assembly, but a solemn one.

PICTURES / PAUL BROOKS ‘Ditch’ Harding’s Spitfire made an appearance.

The human cost was noted by this photograph beside the cross of Private HE Jones.