Maxwell's Anzac service one to brag about

Bev Henderson has been playing piano at the Maxwell Anzac Day service for more than a decade. Photo/ Natalie Sixtus

For more than 10 years Bev Henderson has sat atop a trailer as the piano player at the Maxwell Anzac Day service.

Each year the piano is dragged out of the hall across State Highway 3, up the hill to the cenotaph and placed on a trailer where Mrs Henderson plays several tunes.

"There've been times when it's been on an angle and you sort feel it roll," she said. "But they're getting better and better each year.

"It's something totally different from anything else. I always feel it's a lovely service out here and they really do it well."

Major Paul Garner spoke at the 9.30am service which he described as unique.

"I do brag to my colleagues in the Defence Force about what a special event it is," he said.

Mr Garner said today the NZDF was involved in 14 operations around the world with 350 New Zealanders carrying out orders overseas.

He said they were "firefighters" both metaphorically in the work they do around the world and at times literal firefighters, such as when they helped put out the Whitianga fires earlier this year.

"These are examples of the legacy of the Defence Force and why service is important," he said.

"It's so heartening to see so many young people turn up to these events.

Whanganui Mayor Hamish McDouall, Keila Allen and Elizabeth Terrey prepare to lay a wreath at the Maxwell service yesterday morning. Photo/ Natalie Sixtus

That's the part each and everyone of us can play in ensuring we don't deploy the New Zealand Defence Force 'firefighters' in conflict again.

Whanganui mayor Hamish McDouall addressed what he said was an "intimate service.

"I want to acknowledge the men who served and the men who fell but also the women of this district," he said.

"Women who didn't serve on the front line but bore the burdens of war at home."

Kai Iwi School pupil were in attendance to accompany the crowd in singing the poem In Flanders Fields.