Mayor Message - Mayor Liz Schmidt - Remembrance Day 2019
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“On Monday 11 November 2019 we will once again come together to commemorate Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the day that the fighting ended the First World War.
Each year on this day Australians observe one minute’s silence at 11am, in memory of those who died or suffered in all wars and armed conflicts.
It’s been over a hundred years since the guns of the Western Front fell silent after four years of continuous warfare. During those four years of war, more than 330,000 Australians served overseas and more than 60,000 tragically lost their lives.
More than 1,500 men and women born in Charters Towers enlisted for service in the Great War.
Charters Towers troops played a major role in many battles from Gallipoli, The Desert to the Western Front. Quinn’s Post in Gallipoli was named after Maj Hugh Quinn, MID, who was born in Charters Towers.
This Remembrance Day we pause and remember those who have served in the armed forces. During the ceremony, The Ode of Remembrance is read. It is the fourth stanza of the poem ‘For the Fallen’ by Laurence Binyon and was written just a few weeks after the war began.
The stanza which forms the Ode of Remembrance reads:
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.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
I want to encourage the community to attend the commemoration service this year to pay their respects. Lest we forget.”
- Councillor Liz Schmidt | Mayor
OGG 8 November 2019