Murder is Everywhere: They shall grow not old...

2026 Anzac Day dawn service at the Wellington Arch in central London

Craig every second Tuesday

Kia ora and gidday everyone,

In the past few days a rather significant day for Australians and New Zealanders has passed by again. 25 April may just be a date on the calendar for most countries, but down in New Zealand and Australia, and for others all around the world who have links to our two nations (including Turkey), it is a very special, and sombre day; ANZAC Day. A public holiday, but more akin to one like Memorial Day in the United States than its more festive holiday brethren.

For more than a century the 25th of April has brought Australia and New Zealand - along with our diaspora around the world, to a pause, a special and sombre day where we remember the soldiers, sailors, and others who have served (and are still serving) our countries in wars and conflicts all over the world. Anzac Day, as that date is known in our part of the world, has been commemorated every year since 1916, the first anniversary of an ill-fated battle.

One hundred and 11 years ago, on 25 April 1915, our two nations first fought side by side under the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) banner – our soldiers landing together at dawn on a desolate beach on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. The campaign and landing were a military bungle by the British commanders (including the First Lord of the Admiralty, a certain Winston Churchill) - but the attitudes, actions, and courage of the Australian and New Zealand soldiers both at Gallipoli and over the many battles and years since, stoked a burgeoning sense of independent identity and nationhood.

Anzac. It’s a powerful word for anyone from our end of the world.

Despite being about as far away from the main First World War conflict as you could be, more than 100,000 New Zealand troops and nurses served overseas during the First World War, from a population of just over one million. 42% of men of military age served. The losses were huge. You've only got to drive around New Zealand and spy the war memorials in various rural towns, where there are dozens of names listed even from tiny farming communities, to realise the impact the First and Second World Wars had on a couple of generations. Service, sacrifice.

Anzac Day has been a part of my life since I was a Boy Scout marching in parades in Richmond, a small town in the Top of the South Island of New Zealand, or learning about the Anzacs and the Gallipoli campaign at school. Later I had the privilege of writing about Anzac Day for several magazines, legal and lifestyle, including interviewing several serving New Zealand military personnel (including a Brigadier General) about Anzac Day's ongoing impact.

part of a multi-page feature I wrote on Anzac Day for WildTomato magazine in 2009

Then in 2011, I had the privilege of attending an Anzac Day dawn service, following a chilly overnight stay on the Gallipoli Peninsula itself, camping out with hundreds of fellow Kiwis and Aussies by the beach where the Anzacs landed in 1915, waking for dawn service then hiking up the steep cliffs for morning services at Lone Pine and Chunuk Bair. You can read more about my thoughts on that experience at a prior Murder is Everywhere post.

Dawn on the 25th of April at Gallipoli in 2011

The couple of times when I've been back 'home' in New Zealand during late April over the past decade or so (eg once when Miss 11 was very little, another time when she was seven years old), I attended Anzac Day ceremonies in the smalltown of Brightwater and in my hometown of Richmond, Nelson in the top of the South Island of New Zealand.

The place where I used to march in Anzac Day parades as a little kid in the Boy Scouts, joining the then-current military personnel and the veterans wearing their medals. It's different now, as I'm older, am a father, have friends who've served or are still serving in various militaries, and have experienced loss more directly in my own life.

This year, after toying with it a few times in recent years, I finally got myself (and Miss 11) along to the dawn service in central London, at Hyde Park corner and the Wellington Arch, gilded by the New Zealand and Australian War Memorials. It's a place I've visited plenty of times over the years, during daylight hours; I've even taken quite a few visiting Kiwi and Aussie mates past it as party of lengthy strolls around central London.

Miss 11 by the NZ War Memorial at 4am on Anzac Day

Dragging Miss 11 out of bed at 3am so we could get the night tube into town made me remember the times I'd gotten up early with my Dad when I was little - though that was almost exclusively to watch live sports being played on the other side of the world. FA Cup finals, Rugby World Cup games, etc. To enjoy sporting contests that some fans treat as life and death, but really - as much as I love sports, and appreciate LFC legend Bill Shankly (who famously said, "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that") - something like Anzac Day puts that into true perspective.

More than 2,700 New Zealanders and 8,700 Australians died at Gallipoli.

Many thousands of others were terribly injured. Young men and boys from across our nations. While the numbers are horrifying enough, time and distance perhaps underplays them. Despite being about as far away from the battlefronts of the First World War that you could get, and in no direct danger ourselves, New Zealand sent more than 42% of its men of military age overseas to fight alongside the UK and other allies.

Anzac soldiers landing at Gallipoli were faced with steep terrain and deadly artillery

To put it in perspective, the losses at Gallipoli, given New Zealand's population at the time, are the equivalent of the United States losing just under 900,000 people in a single military campaign today.

It's hard to fathom.

You can see why it was such a big deal for Australia and New Zealand, and why Anzac Day was commemorated since 1916 (the one year anniversary of the landing) even as the war raged on.

The Princess Royal (in green) laying the first
wreath on behalf of the Royal Family

So, 111 years on, Miss 11 and I were among the several hundred people gathered in the centre of London under a dark sky, listening to a karakia and haka from Ngāti Rānana London Māori Club welcoming the Princess Royal to the dawn service. Listening to poems, prayers, odes, and remembrances that did not glorify war or conflict, but called for peace and human connection.

To honour those who'd given their lives, by valuing and protecting life.

After wreaths had been laid and the Last Post rang out, we all dispersed, moving on with our own days and our own lives. A sombre start to a Saturday, but like memento mori, a reminder to be grateful for life, and the costs that others have paid for the freedoms we often take for granted.

Afterwards, Miss 11 and I strolled down Piccadilly looking for an early-morning cafe to have something to eat, before strolling around an oh-so-quiet central London then later heading to parkrun at Bexley. On the other side of the world, my compatriots had been attending services and starting a public holiday long weekend with family and friends. Our Anzac Day was a little different, but I was glad I took the time this year to attend the London dawn service, to remember and reflect. I'll leave you with the words of the Anzac dedication, read out at every service:

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.”

Until next time. Ka kite anō.

Whakataukī of the fortnight:

Inspired by Zoe and her 'word of the week', I'll be ending my fortnightly posts by sharing a whakataukī (Māori proverb), a pithy and poetic thought to mull on as we go through life.

Ko te manu e kai ana i te miro, nōna te ngahere. Ko te manu e kai ana i te mātauranga, nōnā te ao

(The bird who feeds on the miro berry has the forest. The bird who feeds on knowledge has the world.)