Anzac Day cancelled – but we will still remember the fallen
SOME weeks ago, the organisers of the Anzac ceremony at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery on Cannock Chase in England reluctantly – but correctly – decided to cancel the event.
Except for the years during the Second World War, the event has taken place since 1918 as near to the actual date as possible (25 April 1915 being the year the Australian and New Zealand troops charged ashore on ‘Anzac beach’ at Gallipoli).
When the New Zealand Rifle Brigade left Cannock Chase in May 1919, the local people the following year took it upon themselves to ‘remind and remember’ with floral tributes and a few words from the local vicar.
Since then, the ceremony has been one of the largest outside New Zealand and Australia and is organised by the
Royal British Legion’s Staffordshire Branch.
However, this year I decided, in a spur of the moment way, to place some wreaths at the cemetery on the way to work as an online deliveries’ driver for a large supermarket.
The photographs of an empty cemetery are a poignant reminder of the 73 New Zealand troops who came “from the uttermost ends of the world” – and did not return home. Most were victims of the Spanish Influenza of 191819.
Wreath
As well as the wreath laid on behalf of the people and government of New Zealand, I laid a wreath for the Western Front Association as I am a member of its Wolverhampton branch, and a Harakeke cross (flax indigenous to New Zealand) and NZ Returned Services Association poppy, handcrafted by Dolores Ho, the
Head Archivist of the National Army Museum in New Zealand.
Crosses
I also placed wreaths on behalf of the New Zealand Defence Force plus one for the New Zealand People and Government.
Cannock was the very first cemetery in the world that these crosses were placed on every NZ grave; this year those 73 New Zealanders will be represented by the solitary Dolores Cross.
I also placed a wreath on the grave of New Zealander Charlie Mcmillan, who succumbed to the pandemic in November 1918, the month the Great War ended. His nephew Geoff
Mcmillan lives at Waikanae Beach in New Zealand, and is a member of the WFA branch there. He has come over to England this year for his third visit, his plan being to visit friends and attend the nowcancelled Anzac ceremony at Cannock. Geoff cannot return home until flights to New Zealand are resumed. BBC News reporter John
Bray subsequently filmed my explanation about the importance of remembering those who came “from the uttermost ends of the earth” at Cannock CWGC cemetery, as he felt the story was a positive one in these times, and he also interviewed Geoff over the telephone while he was in lockdown in Somerset.
The clip can be viewed on the BBC website (on Google type in ‘BBC Cannock Chase Geoff Mcmillan’).
Next year will be an especially poignant ceremony; sometimes we need to have something we take for granted to be denied us, to appreciate what we have …
We do remember, we will continue to remember.