ANZAC Day 2019

Yet another early morning, setting my alarm for 3am.  Out of the house around 4am and off to the Glynn’s to carpool for the day.

Although the street was pretty busy due to the vehicle cordons around the museum, we were able to find a carpark.  A noticeable absence was our Pipe major Tim.  As it turned out he had Shingles and was not able to make any performances for the day.

The Dawn service at The Museum went as normal, we played on the Cenotaph before the services entered.  There were noticeably less people this year than previous.  The below video has a quick shot of us during the service.

As for every year, after the service we were invited for breakfast at the Museum.  We got to meet the Major Phil Goff, who was key in letting us play on the Cenotaph while a lot of the other services were being cancelled.

The band then did the Newmarket Parade which was not cancelled.  This was because the service is organised by the Newmarket Business Association not the council and run as it usually does. The service was ok, similar to every year where Ngati Whatua open the service, the local MP and Minister say something, wreaths are laid, then the national anthems for New Zealand and Australia are sung before the service is closed.

We had to quickly move off to Henderson as this service started at 11am, half an hour earlier than usual. This was inside as the street march part was cancelled. We were late into the RSA, and stood at the back of the service.  We then played for 20 minutes in a semi-circle ending on the organisers favourite tune, The Gael.