ANZAC Day services held throughout the Corner Inlet district on Monday April 25, 2022, shared a similar poignant quality and drew the local community together to remember and reflect.

More than 150 people gathered at the Toora Cenotaph at the intersection of the South Gippsland Highway and Stanley Street for a moving dawn service led by Toora RSL Sub-branch president Rod Coughran-Lane.

Wreaths were laid at the foot of the Welshpool Cenotaph during a short mid-morning service commemorating the sacrifice of those hailing from the surrounding area who lost their lives in wartime.

The Rock of Remembrance was the centrepiece of the Fish Creek RSL Sub-branch’s 11 am service conducted by returned Royal Australian Navy seaman Danny Brickle of Yanakie.

Despite nursing ribs broken in a recent accident, Fish Creek RSL president Mike Lovell recited the Ode of Remembrancebased on Laurence Binyon’s poem For the Fallen; “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. We will remember them.”

A lone Light Horseman followed by two Foster Secondary College student flagbearers led the parade to the Foster Cenotaph in Main Street, with a former Australian Army tank bringing up the rear.

Foster RSL Sub-branch president Bruce Lester paid tribute to the 35 local young men who fell in World Wars One and Two, as represented by simple white crosses, before describing the battle to protect Port Moresby from the Japanese in 1942.

Lieutenant Commander David Lassam (Ret.) spoke on the bombing of Darwin during World War Two at the Foster War Memorial Arts Centre before a barbecue luncheon was served at the RSL Clubrooms.

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