For the first time in years there was no ANZAC Day service in Ubobo so to commemorate the day I visited the Ubobo Memorial Hall with my grandaughter this morning for our own few moments of private reflections.
The present day Memorial Hall was built to replace the original one (see insert) burnt down in the early 1950s. My family was closely associated with the building of both.
Ubobo was central for the families who came to the Boyne Valley under the Soldier Settlement Scheme. When a decision was made to erect a Memorial Hall, my grandfather elected to travel to Mount Morgan, an old gold mining town, to purchase the original hall and assisted with its re-erection in Ubobo. Then my father as a returned serviceman from WW2 and active member of the The Returned Sailors' Soldiers' and Airmen's Imperial League of Australia (RSSAILA) assisted with the building of the "new" hall now over fifty years old!
The verse is "The Ode" recited at ANZAC Day commemorative services throught Australia since 1921. It is the fourth verse of the poem "For the Fallen", a poem by the English poet and writer Laurence Binyon published in London in the Winnowing Fan; Poems of the Great War in 1914.
