ANZAC Day 2013 – Westminster Abbey Service

Last updated: 30 July 2023

The ANZAC spirit was alive and well in Westminster Abbey for the 2013 ANZAC Day service, where hundreds of expats paid their respects to the spirit of the ANZACs, the servicemen and women that are protecting our shores and everyone in between.

I wasn’t able to make it to the Dawn Service at Hyde Park at the War Memorial where the service is alternated annually between the Aussie and the Kiwi war memorials.  So I made the time to go to the noon service instead.

Crowds of preregistered-security-screened personnel filed into the rows of chairs laid out throughout the Abbey. 

I ended up in sitting amongst the likes of the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Johnson and Campbell in the famous Poets Corner.

I was stunned by the amount of people that you could fit in the Abbey, let alone the actual turnout which was a packed house.  Men and women in uniform of all ages and many many more supporters in civvies.

The choir sang hymns like angels, it was extremely moving to be a part of a silent congregation listening to it.

But as it has done at many dawn services in years gone by, it was The Last Post that had my eyes welling up with tears.  I haven’t a clue what it is about The Last Post, but it does it every time.

Other events like these happen from time to time. I do think it is well worth keeping an eye out for opportunities like this. It doesn’t happen every day and most of the time, they’re free.  

We will remember them.

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