ANZAC Dawn Ceremony 2023.

Remembrance services return to Aotearoa.

The first sounds. A shell being blown, a call to people in that distinctive sound of this land. The single strong voice of a Māori woman plaintively intoning a solemn welcome. Fresh faced army and navy recruits, looking so young in their smartly prepared uniforms.

Quite a contrast to the remaining faces of those returned soldiers from Malaya and Vietnam. The worn faces of those who for years would have been the young ones. The after thought, those involved in more recent conflicts, alongside the bulk of the numbers old and aging from the two world wars. Now it is they who are old, the last of our returned service personnel to see warfare.

But not the last of course of our service men and women who are stationed around the world. Some will appear on the TV coverage, Māori TV always excellent, later in the day as their timezone reaches morning.

I know a couple of families with children in the armed services. They have immense pride representing Aotearoa, reflecting their love of this country and the part they play serving it, and us.

Old faces and new standing solemnly before the War Memorial Museum listening to a single violin playing Requiem For A Soldier.

People gathered at Auckland War Memorial Museum to commemorate Anzac Day 2023. Photo / Greg Bowker.

I think of what a great job our museum does commemorating the conflicts. Recalling hours as a young child standing and reading the names of the fallen on the walls. So many names. Sometimes you would see a sequence of people with the same surname and wonder at the heartbreaking story of that family.

The crowd of course is not only service personnel, old and new. The bulk of the people gathered in the dark this morning are civilians. Perhaps some representing family members who would have stood there with the medals now worn by their descendants. Young families wrapped with a blanket around them on this cold morning in Tamaki Makaurau.

Our Deputy Prime Minister laying a wreath at the foot of the cenotaph, looking solemn in black, elegant and proud. Christopher Luxon lays a wreath in a smart suit looking dignified, and Wayne Brown with so many chains he could be a Hip Hop super star. But today is not a day for politics. Today it doesn’t matter whether you’re left or right or whatever - today we are all humble New Zealanders.

Carmel Sepuloni, Wayne Brown, Graham Gibson (RSA) in Auckland. Ricky Wilson/Stuff.

A wreath from the people of France and I find myself in tears for the first time. Thinking of those young men in the trenches of western Europe more than a century ago. So terrible the events, so great the sacrifice, that it is still recognised from the other side of the world.

And then the Last Post. The red lights upon the museum extinguished, just a white light highlighting the cenotaph as those simple notes ring out.