Photos reveal 'moving' Anzac Day like no other
The familiar sound of a bugler solemnly playing the Last Post at dawn has rung out across NSW, as Anzac Day commemorations moved to neighbourhoods instead of formal services.
Braxton Jones of the 1st/15th Royal NSW Lancers took to the village green at Sydney's Breakfast Point while only the sounds of chirping birds accompanied Adam Jones of the NSW Police Band at the steps of the Sydney Opera House.
In a cul-de-sac in Wahroonga, on Sydney’s Upper North Shore, trumpeter Lewis Ketteridge, 8, and French horn player Grace Colville, 16, were among a dozen brass players playing the Last Post from their driveways before 40 residents observed a minute's silence.
Local resident Catherine Colville said the community carefully maintained social distancing as they placed milk bottle tea candles, pictures of serving ancestors and wreaths of native leaves and flowers under an Australian flag hanging on a tree.
"Strangely, it made it more moving that people were still willing to commemorate Anzac Day instead of just letting it go by," she told AAP.
"The strange circumstances we're living in allowed a lot of the kids who usually wouldn't be playing at an Anzac ceremonies ... an opportunity to play, which I think is lovely."
The Cenotaph in Martin Place, which usually hosts one of the nation's largest dawn services, was met with a quiet pair of cyclists and a handful of walkers paying their respects at first light.
An official service – involving NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, NSW Governor Margaret Beazley and three others – was held later on Saturday morning at the Cenotaph and the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park.
In a recorded statement issued at dawn, RSL NSW Acting President Ray James said he was proud of how veterans had understood the need to suspend services for the first time since 1919, at the time of the last great pandemic.
"Many of you are saddened that Anzac Day services cannot be held in the way they normally are," he said on Saturday.
"(Veterans) have realised the welfare and safety of the community at whole is important. Just because we cannot gather on our traditional Anzac Day services does not mean we do not remember and commemorate those who died and those who served."
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