The first Sunday in June has been the traditional day for Bomber Command commemorations at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra for more than 15 years now.  Sadly, getting up there was one interstate trip too many for me this year. But that did mean that I was able to go to the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne for the Victorian ceremony instead.

It was a good day. By my count, about 70 people were there; a reasonable turn-out, while still being small enough to enable the ceremony to be held in the Sanctuary, the main commemorative area of the Shrine. My understanding is that this is the first time this ceremony has been in the Sanctuary, and that, combined with the presence of a uniformed member of the Shrine Guard, gave the event particular solemnity.

The guest speaker was Squadron Leader Steve Campbell-Wright, a cultural historian and Shrine Governor. His address reflected on the act of remembrance itself, and how it’s changed over time. While it doesn’t actually appear In Laurence Binyon’s original poem For the Fallen, the phrase ‘Lest We Forget’ came to prominence in what’s now known as The Ode (which is actually the third and fourth stanzas of Binyon’s poem). The ‘Lest’ in Lest We Forget actually means ‘in fear of’. And as Campbell-Wright said, it’s the words that come immediately before it in The Ode that give ‘Lest We Forget’ that true meaning.

We Will Remember Them.

Without those preceding four words, Lest We Forget becomes meaningless.

We Will Remember Them – because we are fearful of what happens when we forget.

As I walked into the Sanctuary before the ceremony, a Shrine volunteer handed me a small red poppy. I placed it in a button hole on my coat. At the end of the ceremony, after the laying of wreathes and the singing of anthems, members of the public were invited to place their poppies into small vases next to the Stone of Remembrance, in the centre of the room, as their own tribute. But I kept mine on my coat.

And after mingling with a few people – including Marg McBean, daughter of the late veteran Lancaster pilot Lachie, who I met at one of these ceremonies in 2015 and later interviewed for the IBCC, and my good friend Robyn Bell – I went out the back door of the Shrine, to the first tree on the right.

Underneath it is the plaque for 463-467 Squadrons, to my knowledge the only specific memorial to the two Squadrons in Melbourne.

And that’s where I left my red poppy.

We Will Remember Them.

Lest We Forget.

© 2024 Adam Purcell