By Callum Ludwig
The Upper Yarra stopped to remember those who served on Saturday 11 November.
Services were held at RSLs, cenotaphs and war memorials across the region and the country for Remembrance Day, including one at the Seville War Memorial despite the recent vandalism.
Chair of the Seville War Memorial Committee Anthony McAleer OAM said despite the vandalism of the memorial, the committee were adamant they weren’t going to let this shameful act stop the important community event.
“Nor will it prevent us from remembering and paying tribute to all of those who undertook service for our nation,” he said.
“At this moment all over the country in towns, villages and cities people are coming together as Australians to commemorate our heritage and to remember those who have served, suffered and died for our nation in time of war.”
Services in the Upper Yarra were also held at the Wandin Cenotaph, the Millgrove Memorial Rock, the Upper Yarra RSL and the Warburton RSL.
In the absence of Seville Primary School, Lilydale Police Sergeant Brendan de Schwartz gave a historical reading.
When the First World War ended in 1918, the people of the district gathered for a thanksgiving ceremony and on this occasion, the shire president said the following words; ‘We cherish the memory of all those who while fighting fell,” he said.
“66 from homes within the shire have fought their last fight and sacrificed all so that others may be free. They fell at the post of duty, citizens, soldiers, heroes, giving up all to home and humanity,
“It is ours to keep their memory green and the most fitting monument we can raise to their memory, to perfect and maintain the peace and freedom for which they fought and died.”
Peter Patterson from the Mt Evelyn RSL gave The Ode to the Fallen, Chandler Ward Councillor David Eastham read out the names of those from Seville who died at war, local poet Jim Brown sang the national anthem and Graeme Black from the Seville Township group gave acknowledgements at the Seville service.
Stephanie Johnson, the niece of Private Bruce Bethune who died in Papua New Guinea while serving 80 years ago, read from her poem in tribute to him.
“As they lay in and had a well-earned rest, after battling conditions that can’t be expressed, clouds that burst in the mountains and rain deliver, a once quiet creek turns into a raging river,” she said.
“Before the break of the new day, another young life was swept away, that lad now 20 with a smile so bright, had gone into the great tunnel’s light,”
“To his family a telegram came, ensuring life would never be the same, as his loss cut through a small town’s heart, and tore his family’s lives apart. Letters came with words of sympathy and grief, telling tales of a happy chap whose life was too brief, a lad who spoke of his family and farm with pride, right up till the day he died.”
The Mt Evelyn RSL, Seville Township group, Seville CFA, Bruce Bethune’s nephews Ian and Alistair Johnson and representatives for Evelyn MP Bridget Vallence and Casey MP Aaron Violi laid floral tributes at the memorial.
Jim Brown told the story of a man named Alex Parker, an adventurer who lived in Papua New Guinea in the 1930s and went on to be a spy in the region during World War II, climbing up trees and reporting back on the activity of Japanese troops, using Australian colloquial terms to make up his own code, such as ‘a koala bear who just had a crap on the beach.’
In his acknowledgements, Graeme Black also said that discussions with State and Federal Governments are underway to hopefully organise funding to restore the vandalised memorial to its former glory.
