Thousands of people lined the streets across the Tweed Coast last week as record numbers turned out for this year’s Anzac Day Ceremonies.
More than a thousand people started the day with the dawn ceremony at Tweed Heads this year with a further 300 at the traditional Cudgen service – walking in the pre-dawn through the trees that commemorate those lost from Cudgen in World War I, before congregating at the small cenotaph at Cudgen Primary School.
The wall behind the Cudgen Primary School memorial now holds a plaque to remember former pupil Sapper Rowan Robinson who was killed in Iraq two years ago. Rohan was also remembered at the Kingscliff mid-morning ceremony later in the day, with friends laying wreaths in his memory.
According to Kingscliff RSL vice-president Brian Vickery, more than 2000 people attended the 11am service taking advantage of the new grassed areas, finished by the council just a day earlier.
“There were more than 160 children from St Anthony’s Primary School alone,” Brian said of the large numbers.
Earlier in the morning, more than 400 attended the Kingscliff early morning service. Now in it’s third year the event is run by the RSL and Kingscliff High School, who provide the sound system, guest speakers and music for the service which was originally started to cater for the older diggers who no longer felt able to get up at dawn.
Meanwhile large numbers lined the streets in Pottsville and poured into the Anzac Park for this year’s ceremony which president John Hawes declared as “our biggest yet”.
After the official ceremony, those gathered stopped to remember the first secretary of the Pottsville RSL sub-branch, Phil Bonner who died late last year. His family including his wife, 10 children and grandchildren scattered his ashes along the memorial garden and near the memorial gates that he helped to build at the end of World War II.
