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Ms Dessau could not avoid the unusual nature of it,noting in her speech that we had already learnt during 2020 that we can remember"together,but apart".
We could do so,she said,without diminishing the significance of remembering those who had suffered and died in more than a century of wars and peacekeeping.
Besides,Ms Dessau said,such necessity was nothing new for those who had served and found themselves apart from normal life in trenches,battlefields,foreign villages or in prisoner-of-war camps. And their families knew what it was to be anxiously apart from those they loved,too.
Perhaps,then,Remembrance Day 2020 forced us to remember in perfectly appropriate ways:silent,alone,wearing a poppy,in private contemplation.
The Last Post sounded,the bugler at the Shrine,Able Seaman Luke Glasson,in concert with other buglers stationed across the silent city and in country districts.
The Ode was recited by Navy veteran Sub-Lieutenant Jim Paizis. A young ambassador of the Shrine,Liana Henderson-Drife,spoke the words of the old war poem,In Flanders Field.
A detachment from the 2/10th Field Regiment set an artillery piece booming. Vintage planes flew above.
It was all familiar,but in 2020,the Shrine was a lonely place. The remembering in this year of social distancing and isolation was elsewhere. In the heart.
Without access to the Shrine,about 200 people gathered in the grassed area nearby to mark the occasion.
Among the socially distanced crowd were veterans and families who stood quietly to observe two firings of the cannon,followed by a minute’s silence at 11am.
A strong police presence,including officers on horseback,was visible outside the Shrine,with barricades in place at some entrance points. A series of anti-lockdown protests have taken place near the monument over the past two months.
At least two disgruntled protesters were turned away by police from entering the Shrine.