ANZAC Day services – Chris Parry Writes For Us

ANZAC Day and the ANZAC Day long weekend: It can be about memorials, and maybe a bit more.

April 27, 2022April 29, 2022Posted in abcperth, abcperthsaturdaybreakfast, ANZAC Day services, battlefield tourism, travel, Western Australian TravelTagged #abcperth, #perth, #Perthnow, #wanderoutyonder, #westernaustralia, WA travelLeave a comment

There’s a lot to think about on ANZAC Day and the ANZAC Day long weekend. We thought for Hidden Treasures on ABC Perth Saturday Breakfast we would look at some of the sites around Perth and Western Australia that you can visit to remind you of the ANZAC story.

If you’re going to an ANZAC Day Service and want to experience a little more later in the day, or if you can’t get to a service but want to visit a site that is connected to our ANZAC history, we’ve put together a list of significant places you can visit to make silent contemplation your offering or perhaps find an adventure that helps tell you a story.

I grew up with men and women in my community who had been soldiers and nurses at Gallipoli and the Western Front in World War One. They had been Prisoners of War on the Thai Burma Railway and they had dropped supplies to the soldiers on the Kokoda Track. I knew their stories and felt connected to them because they lived in the streets around me.

There were also bunkers just out of town that had been built during World War 2 to store supplies and where we used to go for school holidays there were lots of adventures to be had exploring Point Peron which was a wartime observation post.

There are lots of places around Perth and Western Australia where you can find tangible reminders of our wartime past and the contribution made by our men, women and our communities.

Some of the places in Perth and around the state include:

Point Peron/Leighton Tunnels/Oliver Hill: Observation posts, gun emplacements and storage bunkers. Amazing to think these weren’t built as a tourist attraction. These were designed to spot enemy ships attacking Fremantle Harbour. They provide a view that lets you imagine what it must have been like to look out to sea with a pair of binoculars and having real fear that enemy ships might appear on the horizon.

***Tunnel Tours at Rottnest and Leighton***

Mount Hawthorn Bus Stops: Gallipoli and Vietnam themed, complete with sandbags.

***Bus Stops on Kalgoorlie St and Anzac Rd***

ANZAC Cottage in Mount Hawthorn. Built in a day! In 1916, they started work at 3:30am and before the going down of the sun, a community finished building a house for John Porter and his family. John was with the 11^th Battalion and landed at Gallipoli.
Broome Flying Boats: On 3 March 1942, Japanese fighters strafed Broome, including dozens of flying boats filled with refugees from Java, to escape the war. At low tide in Roebuck Bay you can see up to 15 flying boat wrecks of PBY Catalina’s and Dutch Dorniers. Many refugees, including women and children, were killed either by gunfire or drowning and as you walk around these wrecks they are a physical reminder of when war came to our shores.
Wireless Hill Station: During World War 1 the navy took control of the Applecross Wireless Station and this is where a signal was received from the Cocos Islands that reported the position of the German Cruiser Emden which was then sunk by the HMAS Sydney. The navy again took over the station during World War 2 and communicated with ships off the coast using a mast over 100m tall.
HMAS Ovens: I asked Tom to research this for his ANZAC education and school holiday counter to boredom. This is what he came up with:
- One of six 90m Oberon class submarines
- Entered service in 1969, decommissioned in 1995
- Crew size 63
ANZAC Centre Albany: Located on Mount Clarence this is one of the greatest interactive and immersive museum experiences in the world. It looks out over the waters of Albany where many of the troopships left from. Follow the story of a service man or woman through the museum, not knowing if they survived the war until you finish your journey through the exhibits.
Merredin and Cunderdin: Major bunker complexes and airfields located throughout the wheatbelt and around Merredin and Cunderdin. There are still old aircraft hangers you can find and the remains of a World War 2 army hospital and a radar hut and concrete ammunition bunkers. There’s also a museum located in Merredin that contains a lot of displays and memorabilia from all Australian conflicts.
Yanchep Bunkers: Walk up the Yanchep Rose Trail off Indian Ocean Drive. In recent years these RAAF radar bunkers have been decorated by a local school with murals that are bright and discourage vandalism and tagging.
Corunna Downs Airfield: Just south of Marble Bar is one of World War 2’s greatest secrets. This is where B-24 Liberator bombers took off from runways over two kilometres long to attack Japanese bases from Singapore to Borneo, Java and other islands. You can still see the runways, bunkers, revetments and bits of rusted metal lying about the place. Also Nookanbah near Fitzroy Crossing,
Newcastle Gaol in Toodyay: Tells the story of the Toodyay connection to Prisoners of War in World War II. Alma Beard trained at Royal Perth Hospital and was an army nurse, and four local men; Herb, Gordon and Tom Dorizzi and Reg Ferguson, were all killed after they’d been taken prisoner. Alma was alongside Vivian Bullwinkle in the shores of Banka Island south of Singapore and the men were in the jungles of Borneo, west of the town of Sandakan.

Visiting sites that connect you to our wartime history is just as important as visiting a memorial site. You can acquire knowledge and pay your respects to all of those who have served, particularly to those who died.

As Lord Byron wrote, “There are deeds that should not pass away, and names that must not be forgotten.”

Community Art Centres & Collectives in Perth and in the Regions

April 27, 2022April 29, 2022Posted in abcperth, abcperthsaturdaybreakfast, ANZAC Day services, perthTagged #perth, #westernaustralia, WA travelLeave a comment

One of our favourite discoveries in Hidden Treasures on ABC Perth Saturday Breakfast are the secrets of the suburbs; what’s off the main drag, what’s in the heart of the suburb and what is the heart of a suburb?

Enjoy listening to the audio file below and reading a few notes as well:

hidden-treasures-164 Download

While our public art is easy to see, and sculptures and murals continue to be popular and prominent, have you ever wondered where you can do an art class or where you might be able to see art on display from artists who live in your community, or a community just down the road?

Community art centres and art collectives are one of the best reasons to do something as a family or justify a weekend drive and activity.

Let’s get into some our suburbs and regional communities and discover how easy it is to put a bit of art in your heart.

Let’s start at the Midland Junction Arts Centre! This is an old school site and the corridors and classrooms make excellent spaces for exhibitions, workshops and classes. I took Tom and his mate Nick away from their tower of consoles last year to see an exhibition that was all blue and included a blue slushy machine. You could pour yourself a slushy while you considered the art on display. There is a year-round program of community led classes and some of the ones coming up are dance classes for over 55’s, experimental arts sessions where the audience give feedback and the good old life drawing class!

***Slushies and Art … Perfect for the Kids***

From one edge of the city to the other, let’s go out to Scarborough where the beautiful Scarborough Art Space Collective runs every day on the energy of Mo, Evie and Otis Maslin and the whole space honours their character traits of inclusiveness, peace and fun. They have so many classes, particularly for children, like making clay echidnas but they also do some adult stuff like macrame making and evening drawing sessions (if you know what I mean). Macrame and evening drawing is sounding a bit like you leave your keys in a bowl but I’m assured this is just one of the most beautiful spaces in Perth to breathe and try something new.

This criss crossing is making me dizzy! Let’s head back eastwards but stop in Mount Hawthorn at the Little Arthouse Collective that is as eclectic as it is exciting. There are often local artists exhibiting and even more often they have their famous soap making classes and indoor plant design courses.

Let’s go regional to a little art space called East End that you’ll find in Beverley. There’s a lot of art and rusty metal to see and they describe themselves as motorcycle friendly with lots of sofas to take a rest from the ride and throw your jacket and helmet onto. They’ll give you tea, coffee and chocolate for taking the effort to ride out there and they will even clean the visor on your helmet!

Other regional arts centres to get immersed in:
- East Pilbara Arts Centre in Newman is a big space and a beautiful collaboration of the local shire and the even more local Martumili artists, linking the community in events requiring participation and a colourful, striped bar code style design on the building that means, “This is a big thing!”
- Roebourne Art Group welcomes everyone to their exhibition space to learn local culture from more than 70 local artists.
- Gwoonwardu Mia is in Carnarvon and has story telling interactive exhibitions from local Aboriginal groups and all this week they’ve run cultural easter hunts looking for the Bigurda, which is a kangaroo in Yinggarda language.

Other art collectives to explore:
- Ellenbrook Arts HQ was established 20 years ago by the Ellenbrook Cultural Foundation to create a diverse, healthy community that participates in arts and cultural experiences. It’s a great place to get to know how art is valued by different cultures and brings us all together.
- Atwell House works hard at social connectivity in the Melville area. Great classes coming up like Chinese Brush Painting of a Rooster which if that isn’t the greatest name for a workshop than surely Sip Paint Repeat is!
- Others include Liddelow Homestead in Kenwick (lectures as well as workshops), look for the reopening of the Rockingham Arts Centre after it’s refurbishment, Laverton Art Centre for displays and workshops by the Wongi people and the Mowanjum Aboriginal Art and Cultural Centre just out of Derby holds workshops, exhibitions and the famous Mowanjum Festival each year in early July.

Big Tip! When you see something you like, buy it. I regret not buying a painting of honey ants in Laverton, I regret not buying Tom a clay model of the face hugger from the movie Alien that was in the Art Garage at Mount Hawthorn but I’m really glad I bought a metal fish skeleton, mounted on corrugated iron and surrounded by driftwood from Esperance.

Community arts centres are hidden treasures because they provide one of the best ripple effects in our community. They connect you to the creativity in your community, inspire you to participate and explore your talent and lack of talent and give you a reason to make a discovery on your weekend.

Heeding the call for the Rottnest ANZAC Day Dawn Service: as published by Rottnest Fast Ferries

June 16, 2021June 21, 2021Posted in ANZAC Day dawn services, ANZAC Day services, rottnest islandTagged #perth, #Perthnow, #westernaustralia, rottnest island, travelLeave a comment

But the band plays Waltzing Matilda, and the old men still answer the call,
but as year follows year, more old men disappear, someday no one will march there at all.

The line above is taken from the Eric Bogle song, ‘And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’.

I remember a time in the 1980’s when there seemed to be a popular sentiment that ANZAC
Day would fade away when there were no more old Diggers to march.

It didn’t work out that way. Across Australia, ANZAC ceremonies continue to grow and the
sense of importance it has in our communities is encouraging people to travel to ANZAC
services in communities abroad.

Maybe not quite ‘abroad’ but one of the dawn services in Western Australia that is increasingly
resonating as a remarkable experience, beyond just the significance of the event, is the
Rottnest Island ANZAC Day Dawn Service.

One of the best characteristics of a dawn service is that it takes a small level of commitment
to get up at a time when you would rather be sleeping. There’s a feeling that the small effort
you have to make to attend the service is part of the respect you are paying.

As a family, we arrive at Hillarys at 4:00am for the departure of the 4:30am ferry. The queue
is noticeably different for a Rottnest bound ferry. There is no tangled pile of bikes being hoisted
in cages aboard the boat. There are no fishing rods, eskies and towels slung over shoulders.
It is also very quiet.

Speaking to people on board, it’s apparent that most of us are attending the Rottnest Dawn
Service for the first time. Dawn, a rather apt name, remembers her father who had been in
the merchant navy always saying he would have liked to have been out at sea and seen the
sun come up over Australia on ANZAC Day. Merv, a Rottnest Volunteer Guide, is looking
forward to preparing our Gunfire Breakfast after the service.

I haven’t been on a sea in darkness for many years. Standing at the stern of the ferry and
looking down at the churning white wake and then looking up at the stars I thought I was about
to reminisce about my younger days on sailing ships but with the moment at hand and on my
mind I thought about the ANZAC’s making their way ashore in a variety of small craft, ill
designed for the landing. At that moment, I thought what it must have been like to be heading
towards an enemy shore, not just running around Blackboy Hill at the foot of the Darling
Ranges.

A ships modern radar that may have been helpful at the Dardenelles in 1915

It is the first time Rottnest Fast Ferries have taken a ferry from Hillarys for the Rottnest Dawn
Service. Up in the wheelhouse I meet James, the skipper, and in between safely navigating
in the darkness around bulk cargo carriers and cruise ships we talk about the appropriateness
of Rottnest Island for a Dawn Service. In 1915, the first ships from the first convoy from
Australia left Fremantle a day before the ships in Albany. Their last look at Australia was
Rottnest Island.

Our Rottnest Fast Ferries skipper guiding us in to Thomson Bay on Rottnest Island

Arriving at Rottnest just before 5:30am, we were directed to Thomson Bay beach where the
service was due to commence. On cue, the first hues of orange began to rise from the east,
backlighting the Perth city skyline, across the sea and land, 30km away.

While the roar of a crowd can be uplifting, the silence of a crowd can be more inspiring. I
remember as a kid the Narrogin ANZAC Day Dawn Service, dark and cold, frost crackling
under feet as we would make our way across the grass to the memorial, towards the orange
glow of cigarettes being drawn on by old diggers, followed by a few raking coughs up and
down the line.

The lack of banter, the lack of chat. The will to gather in a silence that says so
much.

All over the world, as the sun rises, those of us at ANZAC Day Dawn Services are quiet.
The service is held under the protection of flights of pelicans that glide overhead. The wreath
laying includes representation from the Beaconsfield Primary School Rottnest Island Campus,
9 students who attend school on the island and who have also made a paper poppy display
in the Old Salt Store.

With the growing light I am able to look around at the crowd and I am stunned. I had thought
that gathered around my family was about 500 people but clearly there is a crowd of at least
1500.

After the service I speak to Penni Fletcher-Hughes from the Rottnest Island Authority. We
stand in the Gunfire Breakfast queue and after discussing the numbers of people who have
attended we both agree to just enjoy what is unfolding around us. People are standing at the
shore of Thomson Bay, hugging each other and looking out to the rising sun over Perth, others
are capturing photos of the Australian flag with the dawn sky behind and in the long breakfast
queue a bracing breeze passes over us, carrying with it on the air the promise of bacon, eggs
and onion in a warm roll.

I also speak to the Chairman of the Rottnest Island Authority Board, John Driscoll, who was
the Master of Ceremonies for the service. John makes the comment that the wreath laying in
particular is an example of the deep and broad community feeling for ANZAC Day on Rottnest
with a wide variety of government agencies and volunteer groups represented.

We depart the island for the trip back to the mainland at midday. As always, when it’s time to
leave Rottnest it’s not the happiest trudge down the jetty to board the ferry. This time it’s a bit
different. I feel connected to a new story, a new perspective and a new community of people
so passionate about this remarkable event.

Rottnest has given my family an engaging and enduring experience. It always does, but this is different. We are all a bit tired but more than a bit proud to have been a part of a spectacular Centenary ANZAC Day Dawn Service that the Rottnest community made a lot of effort to deliver.

Also from ‘And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’;

And the young people ask, what are they marching for? And I ask myself the same question.

I think we’re all marching. We’re all marching to ANZAC services all over the world. We’re all
marching to remember.

6PR Interview: ANZAC Travels

March 24, 2017March 24, 2017Posted in ANZAC Day dawn services, ANZAC Day services, battlefield tourism, rottnest island, Western Australian TravelTagged anzac day, ANZAC Day services, ANZAC Day travel, WA travelLeave a comment

Please enjoy the discussion below on ANZAC Travels, particularly to Western Australian memorial services on Rottnest Island, at Geraldton, Albany, Boyup Brook and Grass Patch.