Poignancy of Anzac Day service

IN MY VIEW

- By Godfrey Hall

EVERY year there is an Anzac Day service at St Johns Church in Sutton Veny, a small village in Wiltshire. The service always takes place on the nearest Sunday to Anzac Day and is attended by members of the Australian and New Zealand military and representatives from various associated bodies. This year members of the Britain - Australia Society, Royal Commonwealth Society, Commonwealth War Graves Commission and British Legion joined with local people and those with links down under. The service is organised to remember the Australians and New Zealanders who died at a nearby hospital set up for wounded personnel who returned from the First World War. A number of these were nurses. Not only did these individuals die from wounds they had sustained in battles but also from the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1919.

After the service in the church there is a wreath laying ceremony which takes place outside in the churchyard where there is a memorial to those who passed away. Joined by residents of Somerset, Wiltshire and other nearby counties this is always a very poignant moment.