Thousands of people turned up to commemorate Anzac Day in Forbes on Saturday on the centenary of the Gallipoli landings and, by most accounts, crowds at both services were the biggest ever.
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“I think it was wonderful,” Forbes Returned Services League sub-branch president Michael Walker said.
“It was the most people I’ve ever seen for both the dawn service and the mid-morning service - the biggest crowd I’ve witnessed.”
Mr Walker estimates that between 3000 and 3500 people attended the march and mid-morning service on Saturday, while an impressive 1500 people braved the cold and the dark to attend the dawn service.
“The dawn service had without a doubt the most people I’ve ever seen with 1500 people at least,” Mr Walker said.
“I’d imagine we had 3000 to 3500 people at the main service...we had quite a few visitors which was good and some men and women who are still serving came home for it. One bloke even came from Townsville.”
A special feature of the mid-morning service was the address by Andrew Drane, who read an extract from his great grandfather, T. E. Drane’s diary.
Mr Drane had the crowd transfixed as he read out T. E. Drane’s account of the Gallipoli landing on April 25, 1915.
As it turns out, the diary proves that soldiers from the 1st Field Company of Australian Engineers were in fact the first to land at Gallipoli that morning, contradicting the long-accepted history that no NSW men were there that day. This story was part of an Anzac Day feature on 60 Minutes on Sunday night.
“Andrew Drane was particularly good, he had a good story to tell and a great piece of history,” Mr Walker said of his reading.
“We’re very lucky that the Drane family, particularly Andrew, took an interest in it and kept the history of their great grandfather.”
A number of people did readings at the service including Mayor Phyllis Miller who read the prayer for the nation, Barry Shine who read the prayer of thanksgiving, Frank Hanns who gave the prayer of the fallen and Forbes North student Ebony Whalan.
The Forbes Town Band and Forbes choir performed at the service with a large number of people representing both groups on the day.
Mr Walker would like to acknowledge the large number of school children who attended the march on Saturday.
“Special mention goes to the school children that continue to turn up and make the day so special,” he said.
“I’d like to thank the schools for their support.”
Anyone interested in reading all of T. E. Drane’s diary from his time in the war, can access the free interactive iBook developed by Andrew Drane, which can be found on the website http://anzacs.co or can be downloaded from Apple’s iBookstore.
The April 25 diary entry is on page 5 of today’s Advocate and we will continue to publish the remainder of T. E. Drane’s diaries in the next few editions of the paper.
