This morning, my family went to a dawn service on Anzac day, which is an event commemorating the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who served at Gallipolli in the first world war. It’s a significant event for us since many, many, Sheffields have fought in wars, and my great-grandfather died in a Japanese internment camp. If I had been born in the early 20th century I would have fought there too.

It was a dawn service at five thirty am, which meant we got up at, er, four am (I didn’t keep track of the time), which was fun. We got into the car and drove to the Entrance Park, where they held the service. It was funny, when we left the house there were no cars on the road, but as we got further and further down the Entrance highway, the roads were clogged with cars. And the Entrance wasn’t even the only service held in the area.

It was dark and mysterious. We were at the far back (there must have been 3000 people there), but we could hear what was happening over the PA system. There were some technical hitches. They were going to play tapes of the Australian and NZ national anthem, but they slipped up and we only heard the Australian anthem. Otherwise we had a prayer, a short speech by the president of the local RSL club, a minute’s silence, and, for anyone wearing a military decoration or uniform, a breakfast ticket at said RSL club (they made a point of mentioning that alcohol wouldn’t be served).

The function could have been handled a lot better, but it doesn’t matter, since the point was that we all gathered together to pay respect to our nation’s heroes. There were plenty of veterens there (none from Gallipoli, obviously, the last one died in 2002, though there were probably a couple from WW2 and certainly some from Vietnam and Korea).

After that I met up with some friends and watched the sun come up over the lake. We also saw a water rat, and I feel ashamed that the rat sticks in my memory more than the entire event.