Te Awamutu Courier - April 29th, 2010 - Te Awamutu Online

TE AWAMUTU COURIER, THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2010 5
Schools stage services to honour Anzacs
PATERANGI pupils place their poppies on the cenotaph.
BY CATHY ASPLIN
Ten small white
rosses made a huge
mpact at the Paterangi
chool Anzac Service.
Each cross in front of
he cenotaph repreented
a serviceman
rom Paterangi who lost
is life during World
ar I or World War II.
Their names were
ead by Lochlan Mason
10) during the special
ervice. While he hadn’t
ttended an Anzac Serice
before he did know
is four greatrandfathers
all served
his country.
Samantha Sargent-
Mens read the Ode of
Remembrance while
principal Chris Calver
laid a wreath.
Students stood
stoically for a minute’s
silence and all placed
their specially made poppies
on the cenotaph.
For many of the
pupils the service was
also the culmination of a
study based on Anzac
Day which saw them
visit the Te Awamutu
RSA, Memorial Park,
Anzac Green and the Te
Awamutu Museum.
NGAHINAPOURI
SERVICE
A service staged by
Ngahinapouri School
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included several
readings.
One was the
reflections of Dan
Curham, a sergeant who
served with the Wellington
Battalion. He was
one of a group of men
ordered to take a
machine gun up to men
who had seized Chunk
Bair.
‘‘We were thin, most of
us, weak with dysentery
and poor nutrition.
‘‘... Turks spotted us
and we were met with a
hail of bullets, we made
perfect targets.
‘‘... Men began falling
around me. they just
dropped. Men I’d been
PUPILS hold their poppies as they listen attentively during the Anzac Service.
living alongside, fighting
alongside for months,
boys from my hometown.
‘‘... We had been a close
knit group, almost
brothers, but we couldn’t
stop or show sorrow for
the fallen. ..more and
more of us fell.. until I
discovered myself alone,
the one survivor of the 16
who had started out ... I
never saw or heard of my
comrades again..I don’t
even know what happened
to their bodies.
‘‘I have felt their loss
very deeply for the rest of
my life... I didn’t weep
physically, I was not a
weeping chap ... I weep in
my heart.’’
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NGAHINAPOURI pupil Zac Gaby prepares to lay a wreath on the cenotaph.