Donnybrook honours servicemen and women at dawn and morning Anzac Day services

The Donnybrook community has paid its respects to the country’s servicemen and women with big attendances for Anzac Day events.

At least 200 people got up early and headed to Apex Park to attend the town’s dawn service last Thursday, in cool but still conditions.

Following the march along South Western Highway, an even bigger crowd gathered at the memorial again for the morning service.

Guest speaker Pru Cameron talked about the experience of her grandfather Cyril Denton Sharp during World War I.

She recalled a letter Mr Sharp wrote to his father a few days after the armistice.

“He wrote ‘no need for you to know it before, but no harm in you knowing it now the show is over, but up until the very last, I never for one moment (thought there was) any hope of going home. It didn’t look possible’,” she said.

A wide range of community members attended the services, ranging from veterans of past conflicts to students of St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, who took turns to pay their respects.

Donnybrook RSL president Ric Evans told crowds attendance at the dawn service was one of the best he had seen.