An unexpected change in location for Remembrance Day in Seville saw the service end up in Seville Primary School, where the next generation were taught the importance of reflection, remembrance and respect.
Crowds initially gathered at the Seville War Memorial on Tuesday 11 November to reflect on the soldiers who sacrificed their lives protecting their country.
When the weather turned sour, the crowd made their way to Seville Primary School where the ceremony was met with a sombre sense of enthusiasm by the entire school.
Seville War Memorial Committee chair Anthony McAleer OAM led the ceremony and said the 50-person strong crowd bore the icy weather for the ceremony.
“Traditionally we will continue to do a Remembrance Day service, it doesn’t matter what the weather conditions are. We’re lucky at the fact that we’ve got an undercover area if it’s raining,” he said.
Initially, students from Seville Primary School were supposed to arrive at the ceremony to learn about the memorial’s history with the school, but the weather prevented it.
“So we all headed up to the school afterwards in their undercover area… and we held another ceremony. The kids were very enthusiastic and they embraced the whole thing,” Mr McAleer said.
Initially marking the armistice of World War One, Remembrance Day took on greater meaning after World War Two to include all wars and conflicts.
Just over 103,000 Australian soldiers have died in war according to the Australian War Memorial, and millions more died worldwide.
Numbers often minimise the sense of humanity accompanying each loss, but the war memorial’s stories of four soldiers who went to Seville Primary School ensured their legacy lives on.
“There’s a strong connection with their [Seville Primary] school and the figures that are represented on the memorial. In fact the four figures all went to Seville Primary School.
“They [Seville Primary School students] also read out the role of honour. Remembrance day is one of those ones where we like to get the schools involved as part of the ceremony, because it certainly helps establish in their mind what it’s all about, but it also becomes a bit of a rite of passage too,” Mr McAleer said.
Lilydale RSL member Peter Paterson read the Ode to the Fallen poem while Ian Douglas delivered a beautifully sombre rendition of the Last Post.
Then, the clock struck 11, and for sixty seconds, silence hung in the air as people took the time to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers in all conflicts, no matter their alliance.
At the end of the ceremony, floral tributes were scattered at the foot of the war memorial, representing how the lives of the fallen still bloom in our thoughts.
