On the eve of the 90th Martin Place dawn service, Ron Brown reveals the origins of the commemoration.
THE first dawn Anzac Day service in Sydney's Martin Place happened by accident in 1927 when diggers "wending their way home" in the early hours saw an elderly woman placing flowers. It was very near the recruiting booth where many of the 60,000 men who died in World War 1 were enlisted.
"When she stumbled and dropped the flowers they helped her and awkwardly watched her place the flowers; when she commenced to pray they silently joined her," says the Anzac Day Dawn Service Trust's official history.
Those men, Jim Davidson, Ernie Rushbrooke, George Patterson, Len Stickler and Bill Gamble, told others and the next year a hundred or so arrived in the dark.
"With the exception, perhaps, of those sad gates of remembrance on the wharves of Woolloomooloo, there is no spot in all this city that holds so great a store of memories, both proud and pitiful," reported The Sydney Morning Herald of the unveiling of the cenotaph there in February 1929.
"No one who was present at the unveiling ... could have witnessed unmoved that reverent ceremony," said the report.
This year's dawn service is the 90th.
On Tuesday morning, thousands are expected to cram Martin Place. As many as 50 wreaths will be placed on the Cenotaph during the official service, and many others later.
Despite the crowds, it is a solemn and silent event beginning in darkness and finishing in the half light of dawn when most battles begin.
"You can hear a pin drop," says Ron Brown, the president of the Anzac Day Dawn Service Trust that organises the annual event in Martin Place.
The event is held at the same time as the landing at Gallipoli on Anzac Day 1915.
"It was a still night," Australian lieutenant Charles Fortescue wrote of the fatal landing at Gallipoli Cove in 1915.
The Anzac Day march, traditionally held around 9am, began in 1916 in "memory of fallen heroes", and is now organised by the RSL.
Few realise the dawn service is organised by a group of volunteers.
Keeping it going has been a labour of love, passed on from one service group to another as members died and clubs folded.
It is now run by volunteers from 11 service organisations – including the Lakemba Service Club, the RSL, the Cabra-Vale Diggers, and those representing all arms of the defence forces.
According to the War Memorials Register, Martin Place was recommended by the Returned Sailors and Imperial League of New South Wales as the location for the Cenotaph, unveiled in early 1929, because "many returned veterans associated the location with recruiting programs and patriotic rallies conducted throughout the First World War".
Interest in Anzac Day was growing every year, said James Gilhooly, who is the trust's secretary.
Many schools and nursing homes were holding dawn services, he said. Around Penrith, for example, as many as 12 nursing homes hold early morning services for residents.
"I think we are better informed than we used to be: A lot of it comes back from Vietnam vets and how they were treated, and now they were accepted. We just keep it going," he said.
- Info: Dawn service starts 4.15 am in Martin Place. Details at AnzacDayDawnService.org.au
Anzac Day March starts 9am at the corner of Elizabeth Street and Martin Place. Details Cityofsydneyrsl.com.au/anzac-day/
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