The Catlins Area School was well represented at the ANZAC Day Memorial Service in Owaka this year. Margret Tyrell and Amelia Morrison jointly read out a moving article and then lay a wreath on behalf of the school. 

There were some poignant readings, speeches, and tributes from members of the Catlins’ community who reminded us that the freedoms that we enjoy today are due to the sacrifices of those who fought for us many years ago. 

Room 3 have been busy creating ANZAC themed artwork with Ms Darmody in Art using a silhouette of a soldier. Lest we forget.

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.

This poem was written by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943) and published in The Times newspaper on 21 September 1914, a few weeks after the outbreak of the First World War. During these weeks the British Expeditionary Force had suffered casualties following its first encounter with the Imperial German Army at the Battle of Mons.

Laurence said in 1939 that the four lines of the fourth stanza came to him first. These words of the fourth stanza have become especially familiar and famous, having been adopted by the Royal British Legion as an Exhortation for ceremonies of Remembrance to commemorate fallen Servicemen and women.