General News
29 April, 2025
Rainfall fails to dampen the Anzac spirit
While torrential rain forced the cancellation of Carisbrook’s Anzac Day service, this didn’t dampen the community’s resolve to remember.
The rain just managed to hold off for a crowd of more than 60 people in Victoria Park Gardens, Majora who came to mark Anzac Day on Friday morning.
To follow, over 100 people gathered at the cenotaph on Simson Street at the Carisbrook service.
The proceedings for both ceremonies consisted of the reading of the names of the fallen, the Last Post, the wreath laying and speeches from Carisbrook Primary School students as they proudly spoke about their own veteran family members.
However, the Carisbrook service ended once heavy rain had arrived.
Organiser Alex Stoneman lead both services, but said due to the persistent rain, the Carisbrook ceremony couldn’t continue.
“Because of the weather and the rain, the hymns at the Majorca service were cut a little short, but Carisbrook had to be called off before the guest speaker unfortunately,” he said.
Regardless, Mr Stoneman was impressed with the turn out at both events.
“In Carisbrook there were well over a hundred people, we even lost count. But it was absolutely fabulous, there were comments from people in Majorca saying they were impressed with the incipient avenue of honour,” he said.
Mr Stoneman spoke about the privilege of leading the ceremony, acknowledging the support to host both events.
“There was also a total of almost 40 people between both Majorca and Carisbrook participating, the support is remarkable,” he said.
The guest speaker for both events was the Carisbrook Mercury editor Carlene Dowie, who spoke about the importance of war correspondents, and their roles in telling stories that soldiers were unable to.
“It was great to be able to bring a different perspective to Anzac Day. It was about the early history of Australian war correspondents, starting in the Boer Wars, and then into World War I,” she said.
“It was a reflection on how important correspondents were in bringing the story back to Australia.”
Ms Dowie said much of what we know about wars is from the correspondents who went there.
“The other important message is there are many people who went to war and they were unable to tell their story. Either they died, or they couldn’t speak about it,” she said.
“But that is what war correspondents do, they go there to tell those stories.”
Ms Dowie also said services in small communities like these are important reminders of the impact war has on those communities.
“You hear stories and names of people being read out, and you understand the tremendous toll that the war took on those communities. You can’t imagine now what it would be like to have that many people taken from a community,” she said.
“I’ve been going to the Anzac Day services at both communities for many years, and it really does strike you every time.”
