Boorowa’s Remembrance Day Service

“With increasing awareness every year she realized what it had meant of horror, desperation, anxiety, and loss to her generation. She knew that the dead are most needed, not when they are mourned, but in a world robbed of their stabilizing presence. Ten million men, she told herself, who should now have been between forty and fifty-five – our scientists, our rulers, our philosophers, the foremen in our workshops, the head masters in our schools, were mud and dust, and the world did ill without them” (from Winifred Holtby’s “South Riding”, published in 1936).

Last Thursday saw around 70 men, women, and school children from Boorowa Central School and St Joseph’s School paying their respects to Australians who have given their lives in the defence of Australia and during peace-keeping operations.

This year’s service was held at the Boorowa Ex-Services and Citizen’s Club. Chaired by Michael Taylor, the ceremony included short but heart-felt presentations delivered by Alan Banks (President, Boorowa RSL Sub-Branch), Deacon Patrick Whale, and guest speaker, returned service person, Dean Franklin.

One of the School Captains from St Joseph’s School, Alice Dymock, undertook a Bible reading (Psalm 46), and Boorowa Central School Captains, Abbie Grant and Felix Crozier, read the poem “Flanders Fields” by John McCrae.

The presentations were followed by one minute’s silence at 11am, then the playing of “Rouse” to symbolise an awakening in a better world for the dead and rouse the living back to their duties. The New Zealand and Australian national anthems were then sung, followed by the laying of wreaths.

• Topics:

• History
• Remembrance Day