Hundreds ofOur Place supporters joined the Walk to Protect the Cenotaph on Sunday, 10 November, in Hobart.
A steady flow of people walked from Elizabeth Mall, along Bathurst Street and over the Rose Garden Bridge, down through the garden and around the Aquatic Centre where banners and signs were obligingly handed over in a show of respect for the coming solemn event hosted by the RSL and supported by the TSO.
The RSL and TSO were pleased with the turn-up, estimated at over 2,500 people at the Cenotaph. There was not a banner in sight as we approached the vigil.
What followed was a beautiful memorial to those upon whose memory the Cenotaph was raised. We passed by a field of tiny white crosses named for the 522 Tasmanians many of whose remains never made it back to their home and families, just their names etched on a scroll and buried in a casket of zinc set into the base of the Cenotaph on 25 April 1926.
We listened to poignant pieces of music, many composed by Australians who lived or died around the time that the Cenotaph was being built, including Percy Grainger, Alex Lithgow and Tasmania’s own Gallipoli survivor Frederick Septimus Kelly, performed by the TSO chorus, and its Brass and Percussion sections.
We learned of the history of the Cenotaph and the wars it commemorates from speakers interspersed throughout the musical program including MC Mick Johnson OAM, the TSO’s Caroline Sharpen OAM, Tasmanian historian and Emeritus Professor Stefan Petrow, and military historian and author John Wadsley. Every attendee would have expanded their understanding of these topics by listening to these erudite speakers.
It was a very successful event, enjoyed by an attentive and generous crowd. We were proud to have been part of it.
Media coverage of the event was generally positive, although they did fail to identify and report on the tents erected under the trees next to the Cenotaph that day. A missed opportunity for the media to expose the personal cost of the housing shortage in Hobart, the cost of a stadium. We could do so much more to address homelessness. We could do it at Mac Point.