A woman's touch for ANZAC event

The Reverend Ali Wurm who will officiate at the 2008 ANZAC Light on the Water commemoration on the Port River is the Parish Priest of a Semaphore church that was built 35 years before the Gallipoli campaign.

There is an unusual link to the Gallipoli lifeboats landing because many parishioners say the wooden ceiling of St Bede’s reminds them of being in a boat.

School students and families will launch several hundred candle-lit cardboard lifeboats from the Queens Wharf pontoons in a moving tribute to the merchant seamen who rowed our troops ashore in ship’s lifeboats on April 25 in 1915.

St Bede’s is active and engaged in the local area and strives to make a difference.

“We relate as a lively, nurturing and supportive community of faith, Rev Wurm says.

ANZAC Light on the Water information kits and cardboard templates will be distributed to schools in March so students can make their own lifeboats for the commemoration on the evening of Thursday April 24.

Some students at Our Lady of Visitation are already looking at some of their own designs for replica lifeboats and we encourage such individual efforts.

Our photo shows Semaphore and Port Adelaide families along with others from as far away as Leigh Creek at the inaugural ANZAC Light on the Water last April 24.


WE ASK YOU JUST TO REMEMBER US


No cross marks the place where now we lie
What happened is known but to us
You asked, and we gave our lives to protect
Our land from the enemy curse
No Flanders Field where poppies blow;
No Gleaming Crosses, row on row;
No Unnamed Tomb for all to see
And pause—and wonder who we might be
The Sailors’ Valhalla is where we lie
On the ocean bed, watching ships pass by
Sailing in safety now through the waves
Often right over our sea-locked graves
We ask you just to remember us.

Pipes and drums for ANZAC Eve

To mark the start of ANZAC Light on the Water 2008 the South Australian Pipes and Drums band will present a one-hour concert in Lighthouse Square Port Adelaide at 6 pm on April 24.

Without a doubt they are South Australia’s most versatile and sought after pipe band.

The South Australian Pipes and Drums came into being in April 2003 in response to an invitation from the Director of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo to perform at the Tattoo in August of that year.

The band was formed from very experienced pipers and drummers who accepted the invitation and embarked on the rather daunting challenge of training and equipping for the task ahead.

As a brand new band with no uniforms, the opportunity was taken to design a new tartan that incorporated the colours of the State of South Australia.

This has been registered as The South Australian Pipes and Drums Tartan and the band’s kilts and plaids are made of this distinctive design.

After a hectic period of fund raising, the South Australian Pipes and Drums, with some borrowed equipment, appeared at the 2003 Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

The band recently made a successful visit to Moscow for public performances.

The band has been in constant demand to perform at concerts and street parades with their distinctive style of ceilidh music that they performed in November at the Semaphore Street Fair.