We started the morning with a short commemorative service to recognise the men and women who have served our country and given their lives to defend the freedoms that we all experience.
After the ceremony, given by Bruce, everyone enjoyed a bacon and egg roll with hash browns while they discussed the various experiences that their families had had with the wars. Many thanks go to Anne Kendra, Rosie Burnett and Charles Johnson for doing all the cooking for the breakfast and cleaning up afterwards.
Obviously feeding Mike Beale before the game was what he needed and he went on to score an excellent 20 points to win from Jon Bowden in a count back. Mike also got the OBE for this effort. Jim Kendra, who recently had cataract surgery, came third in a count back with 19 points. Other good scores were achieved by Gerard McCabe, Alan Dale and Jon Beales.
Novelties were won by Phil McCann, Richard Verboon, Alan Dale, Jon Beales and Merv McKillop. Cliff Spencer won the chocolate and Merv won the Wheel.
Ray Atcheson suffered a mild heart attach during the week but was resting up at home, he will be out for a few weeks. Michael Lawson rang the veterans to say that his doctor had found another cancer (breast) and he was going in for surgery next week.
Bruce read the following Poem at our Anzac Ceremony
Young Sons by Bill Mitton
A mother takes down a photo
And she holds it to her breast
Just has she’d done the child it shows
The little boy she’d washed and dressed.
She remembers how his hair felt
His soft scent still fills her nose.
And once again she is saddened,
by the path her young son chose.
With boyish smile, and happiness
he’d picked the shilling and the gun
she remembered still the fear and dread
when he told her what he’d done.
Yet she’d smiled and waved him off
as only a loving mother could
If God was good, her smiling son
would return as young sons should.
But then fickle fate, it knows no God
it makes its judgments where it will
and bullets don’t discriminate
about who they should maim or kill.
So young sons often come home
fulfilling all their mothers fears
Not with happy smiles and laughter
but, draped in flags and mother’s tears.
Updated 29 September, 2025
Well done Bruce.