Every year on ANZAC Day I look forward to listening to the dawn service from Martin Place on the radio. This dawn service is on the television, of course, on almost all networks, but I find there is something very special about listening to the service rather than seeing it.
My preference is to listen in a dark room, maybe even in bed with no light whatsoever. The service becomes more intimate in this way and allows a mental image to be drawn of a quiet, humble service by candlelight occurring just as the sun starts to make its light known. More importantly it allows me to imagine what our servicemen and servicewomen endure in dark and hostile locations around the world, and specifically given it is ANZAC Day and the anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli in World War I, how our soldiers in that time must have felt, in the dark, on the other side of the world, with their only link to the rest of the world being a radio if they were lucky and an occasional letter service at other times.
I made the mistake one year of turning on the television for the Martin Place dawn service and was aghast at the entire area being floodlit. I know light is important for television, but it ruins the atmosphere of a very important and solemn event in my view.
The marches during the day require light and a generally happy atmosphere of gratitude, but this is not the case for the dawn services which occur in the dark as a commemoration of the events of the fateful landing at Gallipoli at dawn on April 25, 1915, and deserve a solemn atmosphere which dark and candlelight provide, and floodlights do not.
May your ANZAC Day be special and reflective.
Samuel
1 Comment To "Listening to the ANZAC Day dawn service"
#1 Comment By nbrettoner On April 25, 2024 @ 8:24 am
Good morning Samuel,
Yes I feel the same regarding the solemnity and honouring of those who faught and still fight for good will freedom peace and the real truth.
This morning I awoke too late to make it to the Sawtell piccaninee pre-dawn remembrance gathering; overlooking the beach and across the sea to New Zealand. But I was able to make it to the actual remembrance gthering, which again was huge. Even moreso than last year.
So my ‘dark room’ tends to be either hopefully at pre-dawn gathering, or otherwise quietly at home before departing for the Remembrance Service.
The unity and reverance of those gathered this morning here was so good.
Actually, perhaps one of the best Anzac Day service I’ve attended was back in Deni circa 2011/2015 during a visit there. Thick fog, standing across the road from the memorial under the street light. As the Buglar began to play, two low-flying WWII fighter aircraft flew over perfectly ontime, buried in that poignant mist. And two Kookaburras just above us on the wires began the most amazing dawn chorus.
Enjoy the day, and thankyou for your thoughtful caring.
Noel~of~the~north