By JESSE GRAHAM
HEALESVILLE’S Avenue of Honour will be reinvigorated and re-dedicated with names of Diggers in time for next year’s Anzac centenary, following a funding announcement last week.
Casey MP Tony Smith visited Healesville RSL on Thursday 6 November to announce $1000 in funding for signs to mark Healesville’s Avenue of Honour.
Heslesville RSL Commemorations Officer Bob Gannaway said the funding would be used for storyboard signs at either end of the Avenue of Honour – which runs along Maroondah Highway from the BP Service Station down to Le Pine Funerals.
He said the signs would feature names of soldiers from the Healesville RSL’s Honour Roll, and that the signs would be established in time for the centenary of Anzac Day on 25 April 2015.
“Originally, they had separate bronze plaques at either side, but they’d been dug up and lost years ago,” Mr Gannaway said.
“Rather than try and re-create that, we’re doing a storyboard at each end.”
He said the signs’ design and placement had yet to be decided, but the aim was to make sure they were eye-catching to drivers and passers-by.
Mr Gannaway said the original Avenue of Honour ran down to Healesville-Yarra Glen Road, but that parts of it had been removed and only the one segment remained.
“You’d be surprised at the amount of people who have lived here their whole lives and forgotten about the Avenue of Honour,” he said.
“This is to regenerate that interest and that recognition.”
Mr Smith said the sign funding came out of a local Anzac Centenary Committee, which assesses potential projects to fund in the lead-up to next year’s centenary.
He said the Avenue of Honour signs were an important way to re-engage people with the history of the town and the country, as the centenary of World War I drew closer.
“Projects like this that 100 years on remember the local history are enduring, particularly for the younger generation – to look at a storyboard and imagine those names as people walking the streets of Lilydale,” he said.
“Investing in education for the centenary of Anzac is a great opportunity to capture that local history, for people to learn about it in the future.”
An Avenue of Honour is an avenue of trees that commemorate those who have served in armed conflicts.
Mr Gannaway said he would be discussing options for the signs with the Yarra Ranges Council and VicRoads, to ensure they were appropriately-sized and unobtrusive for drivers.
