Students unite to remember

MASS EVENT: About 2500 pupils from Havelock North's eight schools attended yesterday's service.

Havelock North kicked-off the biggest Anzac Day commemorations in Hawke's Bay in more than half-a-century yesterday when about 3000 people attended a combined schools service inspired by a project studying World War I.

About 2500 pupils from the village's eight schools took part, watched by a growing crowd of parents and onlookers taking the total past the 2779 New Zealanders killed in the eight-months of horror that followed the Gallipoli landing 100 years ago today.

It was possibly also the biggest gathering of school students in Hawke's Bay for any purpose in many years - at least in the "non-competitive sense," said Woodford House head of social sciences Rachel Roberts, whose students came up with the idea at the end of last year.

It reminded some of the national pride of the parade and festivals era of the 1950s and 1960s, and continued a reawakening among young people eager to learn about the service of their forebears who fought for their country in the wars.

There were tributes from each of the schools, with pupils ranging in age from 5 to 18, but it also honoured those who looked after things at home, waiting in hope for the return of loved ones serving in the two world wars, in 1914-1918 and 1939-1945, and other conflicts abroad.

It seemed to be a particularly poignant hour for 10-year-old Cassius Solomon, the right breast of his Hereworth school blazer sagging under the weight of the Africa Star and other medals awarded to great-grandfather Walter Solomon for service in World War II.

The boy's father, Mark Solomon, said studying the war years had sparked his son's interest in researching Walter Solomon's war record.

The service, which opened with the piping of Amazing Grace, included readings and among those representing the schools was Woodford House pupil Sarah Ardin and Havelock North High School's Max Cooper, who will speak on behalf of "youth" at today's Hastings District civic service.

It closed with the trumpet calls of the Last Post and the Reveille, before representatives of each school left to lay wreaths at the Havelock North Cenotaph.

Mrs Roberts was impressed with the way schools, the community and the Hastings District Council had come together, and the support of Woodford House pupil Abigail May, who was unable to be there. She is in Gallipoli as a result of her success in the RSA's Cyril Bassett VC Speech Competition, from which she gifted her $1000 prize towards the costs of yesterday's service.

"It exceeded expectations, the weather came on board, and now we will work through how it went," Mrs Roberts said, when asked whether the event, staged because of the Gallipoli centennial, might spawn an annual schools commemoration. "Everything's in place."

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected at Anzac Day Gallipoli-landing centenary commemorations nationwide today, including dawn parades and late-morning civic and village services across Hawke's Bay.