Anzac Day commemorations will be hosted across Hauraki Coromandel on April 25 for people to gather and remember together.
Valley Profile reporter DAVIDDA HIKATANGATA spoke to people in Waihī and gathered reflections, memories and stories of what Anzac Day means to them.
Christine and Margaret reflected on what Anzac meant to their family as their father served in Egypt.
The sisters both said Anzac Day was special to them.
“We grew up with it being special.”
Christine said: “It means a lot because we’ve always gone to [the] dawn service. I always go to the dawn one down here at the [Waihī] RSA, and I always go to the lovely one at 11 o’clock in the park with the animals and the horses. My sister [Margaret] is here this year to enjoy it.
“We go up to my father’s and mother”s grave to put the poppies on. We’re going up tomorrow to do that.”
Christine said: “He [dad] served in Egypt. We were born after he came back. Two of the sisters were born before he went, one of my sisters… was four [years old] the day he came home. She was born two days after he left for war. So that was Irene, and that means peace.
“So yes it means a lot to us because, you know, mum always said dad didn’t come back the same man.”
Margaret said: “500 people came to his funeral… The suburb we lived in was the biggest in the country, Mount Roskill. And mum’s cousin wanted to do the funeral in a little church so there [were] hundreds of people outside the door.
“It was a fine day, and men must have stopped all the traffic because we had [a] police escort all the way to the graveyard, it was like being royalty. He was so loved”.
Guy and John Trowbridge, of Auckland Guy said Anzac was a time of remembrance.
“My Grandad was in a prisoner of war camp so I guess a time of reflection, and thinking about him. We often get up for the dawn service and pay tribute,” he said.
Meanwhile John, 9, said it was “a time for mourning people who died in war”.
Eddie Morrow of Waihī Beach, who works in Waihī.
“I think Anzac certainly is… a point in time and we know every year it’s the opportunity to actually stop and remember a really significant event for particularly the people that served in that war, and went and fought for us,” Eddie said.
“And I know also from an Anzac perspective, I think it strengthens the relationship we have with our Australian colleagues.”
He said it was a “really important day just to stop and actually take time to reflect on that”.
Avlon Paul, 19, of Waihī with nephew Faizon, 8, and niece Te Atarangi, 10, from Auckland.
For Avlon, Anzac is “getting together and celebrating those who passed from the war and just celebrating with everybody”.
