With a small but dedicated team of eager volunteers, the Navigators History Club is preparing a special service for Anzac Day.
Drawing on the club’s interests in researching the region, the club’s dawn service at the Navigators Community Centre will this year feature a speech from the family of John Daly, who farmed in the Navigators region and served in Gallipoli.
Navigators History Club president Michael Clark said the annual event was always a special occasion, where all walks of life come together to remember.
“It’s marvellous these days, you get a lot of children there,” he said. “People seem to want to come more now then they did 20 or 50 years ago.
“They want to come and honour their soldiers who fought for us.”
Mr Clark’s own family history in Navigators stretches back to the 1860s and he said much of his family still lives in the area.
“I’ve always been interested in history, my great grandfather came here in 1863,” he said,
“He had about nine children and a lot of them married their neighbours, so then the next door neighbours became cousins.”
The dawn service will begin at 6am on April 25 and will be followed by a breakfast at the community centre.
It really is a magic day to get so many people along and so many back for progress, it’s a great celebration for the soldier’s lives, what they did.
Elsewhere in Moorabool, a dawn service will also be held at 6am on Main Street in Bacchus Marsh.
This will be followed by a parade beginning at Grant Street at 10.30am, with the procession moving to Main Street and then on to Gisborne Road.
A parade will also be held in Ballan from starting in Inglis Street on to Stead Street from 10am to 4pm.
