Far from Flanders fake poppies flow
Reminding me of headstones, row on row,
Standing in memory of those who died
While PC-9s, in Missing Man, fly
Heard above the field gun’s bellow.

I’ve never been to the Remembrance Day service before, so it was very interesting. It was much more like Reserve Forces Day than Anzac Day, I suppose that since Anzac day has become a bigger deal people are more keen to speak there?  This was more … simple, although no less dedicated.

Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne on Remembrance Day 2014

The usual VIPs - the Governor, MPs, the Lord Mayor, ADF & RSL bigwigs, along with the Shrine Trustees were joined by most of the Consular Corps, a reminder that we and the Kiwis are weird for making Anzac Day our primary day of commemoration.

Another thing I noticed was the unusual flag arrangement - Australian Flag, Union Jack, French Tricolour. Turns out they have rules about which flags they fly based on which countries have their national memorial days when. They also will fly unit flags on their individual memorial days. I don’t know how they decide whose flags will fly November 11 - maybe they always use the two imperial flags to try and cover as much ground as possible, or perhaps they have a rotation?

Governor Chernov mentioned in his speech that the Shrine of Remembrance was dedicated on Remembrance Day in 1934 in a ceremony attended by 300,000 people at a time when barely a million people lived in Melbourne, and while today’s ceremony had barely a fraction of that number, I still felt like Chief Inspector Finch.

I got this feeling of connection, and I could see the whole thing stretched out as a long chain of events stretching back to General Monash getting the politicians to agree to construct his vision … I felt that although I stood there 80 years after the dedication, I was still much closer to the beginning of this tradition than the end.

Lest we forget.