Vietnam veteran Bill Godfrey, then 78, leads the last parade to the Kerikeri RSA flagpole in 2019. The RSA clubrooms have since been demolished to make way for a retirement village expansion. Photo / Peter de Graaf
Vietnam veteran Bill Godfrey, then 78, leads the last parade to the Kerikeri RSA flagpole in 2019. The RSA clubrooms have since been demolished to make way for a retirement village expansion. Photo / Peter de Graaf
Kerikeri’s war veterans are planning a big comeback this Anzac Day after years of dawn services diminished by the Covid pandemic and the loss of the town’s RSA clubrooms.
Finishing touches are being made this week to a new war memorial at Kerikeri Domain, replacing the cenotaph at the RSA’s old Cobham Rd headquarters, and large numbers of high school students are getting ready to perform much of the April 25 service.
Kerikeri RSA president Bill Godfrey, who served in an artillery unit in Vietnam in 1966, said the town’s last proper dawn service was in 2019.
Since then there had been small-scale services at a temporary flagpole in the domain.
“But this year we’re trying to make a pretty big comeback,” he said.
Members of No 6 Squadron of the RNZAF, which operates the Defence Force’s Seasprite helicopters, would take part in the service, much of which would be performed by students from Kerikeri High and Springbank schools.
The high school’s kapa haka group would lead the hymns and the New Zealand and Australian national anthems, and students would also read the roll of honour. Godfrey said the students were “keen as mustard” to contribute, even when it came to helping prepare breakfast afterwards.
They had also volunteered to help with the Poppy Day collection.
The RSA didn’t have enough members to staff every collection point, so without the students’ help veterans could miss out on thousands of dollars in donations for their welfare fund, he said.
He had been pleasantly surprised by the youngsters’ enthusiasm. “My intention is to try to imbue into them the Anzac spirit, but most of them already seem to have it.”
Lance Corporal Gemma Love, of the Kerikeri Cadet Unit, places a poppy at a temporary flagpole in Kerikeri Domain in 2021. Photo / Jenny Ling
He estimated about 50 veterans would gather at the domain at 5.45am for the short march to the new memorial.
Their numbers would be bolstered by family members wearing their ancestors’ medals.
“We certainly encourage that. For anyone who knows how to read medals, they tell the story of the New Zealand armed forces.”
The dawn service would be followed about 6.30am by breakfast at the Homestead Tavern.
A civic service at the same location, starting at 9.45am, would follow a similar format to the dawn service but without breakfast afterwards.
Godfrey expected it would be “quite a spectacle”, with flag bearers escorted by members of the high school kapa haka group carrying taiaha, and the Kerikeri Cadet Unit forming a catafalque party standing guard at the corners of the memorial.
Countdown had donated all the ingredients needed for the breakfast, which would be free for veterans and $5 for the wider public.
The former Kerikeri RSA complex closed in 2019 due to dwindling membership and the high cost of rates, insurance and maintenance.
The buildings have since been demolished to make way for an expansion of the neighbouring Oak Ridge retirement village.
A new memorial was built last year at the domain, next to Procter Library, but finishing touches such as paving and plantings are being added now.
RSA members now meet weekly at the Homestead, where the Ode of Remembrance is read in te reo and English at 6pm every Thursday.
Anzac Day commemorations will be held at cenotaphs and war memorials across Northland on April 25. The largest gathering will be at the Whangārei Cenotaph, in Laurie Hall Park, with the dawn service from 6am.
The Northern Advocate will have a full list of Anzac Day events across Northland next week.
