Residents from Arvida Mary Doyle lifecare village in Havelock North have been preparing for Anzac Day making crosses, knitting and crocheting poppies, and making lanterns.
Residents from Arvida Mary Doyle lifecare village in Havelock North have been preparing for Anzac Day making crosses, knitting and crocheting poppies, and making lanterns.
Anzac Day commemorations will get off to an early start in Hawke's Bay on Saturday, with the unveiling of headstones of two war veterans whose service has gone unmarked in a Napier cemetery for over 75 years.
The graves are of Napier born-and-bred Corporal Harry Roy Harry Bower who in1915, aged 25, started more than three and a half years of service which included a 1917 Military Medal for gallantry in the field on the Western Front in Europe; and Ireland-born Thomas Joseph Ryan, who was living in Brisbane when he enlisted in October 1914 to serve with the Australian Imperial Force in the Australian Field Artillery 3rd Field Artillery Brigade (Park Section).
Ireland-born World War I Australian serviceman Thomas Ryan, who died in Napier in 1944 and whose service will be commemorated in a Napier cemetery on Saturday.
Bower died in 1941 and Ryan, having first moved to New Zealand to be near his sister, died in 1944.
The latest of the continuing projects in Hawke's Bay the New Zealand Remembrance Army, the ceremonies will start at the top of Park Island Cemetery at 10am.
The rest of the action is on Monday when dawn and mid-morning commemorations will be held throughout New Zealand, including most communities in Hawke's Bay, with the period up to 1pm primarily reserved for the annual remembrance of those who served their country in World Wars I and II and other conflicts.
Among the services is one at 10am at the Arvida Mary Doyle lifecare village in Havelock North, for which residents have been preparing making crosses, knitting and crocheting poppies, and making lanterns - not to mention the Anzac biscuit competition.
The law bars almost any public events on Monday before 1pm other than Anzac commemorative events.
There is no horse racing before 1pm, nor any sports events on public facilities before 1pm, and most bar facilities are unable to open before that time.
Under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, RSA clubs and other premises that house RSAs are allowed to trade from 4am to 1pm on Anzac Day without the need to apply for a special licence.
The Arvida Mary Doyle lifecare village in Havelock North is hosting an Anzac commemoration service at 10am on Monday.
Possibly the last of the weekend's Anzac Day events will be the showing of the Sir Peter Jackson documentary They Shall Not Grow Old at the MTG in Napier on Monday, starting at 1pm.
Outdoor services, such as the dawn parades and cenotaph wreath-laying could be troubled by inclement weather. The MetService outlook for Hawke's Bay forecasts a fine Sunday turning to late cloud and a few showers with northwesterlies changing southwest, leading to Anzac Day weather of cloud and showers at first, clearing later in the day to fine weather with the southwesterlies dying out.
