GETTING ON

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 3, 26 April 1939, Page 1

GETTING ON

0 BOYS OF THE OLD BRIGADE ' OLD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE "By jingo these fellows arc get. ting on"' remarked one bystander at the Anzae ceremony by Pjhaturoa Rock yesterday. 'Theres old i remember when he was only a lad, and the struggle he had with the authorities to prove his age when ho enlisted/' > Time certainly marches on and the - Anzae veterans are no longer the ■ dark headed vigorous young band of • exservicemen who paraded not so • many years ago with .Anzae Day was first instituted. Grey heads pre. dominated at yesterday's gathering and although the years sat heavily on some, the march down the main street in the Strand was a pattern of steadiness and soldierly bearing. The veterans of the greatest struggle in all history file by in every town and hamlet of the Empire but I Anzae is reserved for the heroes oi Australasia who called the name into ' being. It was hard to imagine so many oi' Whakatane's set and staid citizens of today, who took part in yesterday's memory march* transformed into the fighting men of twenty_iive year 3 ago. Yet here in homage thev meet, every twenty-fifth day of April to the memory of com-tu'es who fell at Gnilipoll, Snlon'ka ar.il France. They have much in common with them, for they shared their dangers, their privations and the\r dories. But unlike them they hav--lived to return in peace and canv on where, they who gave all, were ; cut off. Grey heads in yesterday's march! But proud heads held high in the memory of a glorious past and a re. j sponsibility for the future wh'eh onlv a returned soldier may know. Pass on, you Anzacs and as the years roll by we in our heart of t hearts wil] never forget.