Berwick RSL president Noel Sealy congratulates Four Oaks Ward councillor Wayne Smith for his selection on the Spirit of Anzac tour.By Jim Mynard
BERWICK RSL president Noel Sealy has commended a Sate Governmentsponsored tour that will take 10 secondary school students on a 2006 Spirit of Anzac Prize Tour.
Mr Sealey also supported River Gum Ward councillor Wayne Smith as one of two chaperones for the students.
Cr Smith has been a teacher for 26 years and is the community links coordinator at the Eumemmerring College Fountain Gate campus.
Cr Smith was selected after teachers from around Victoria in state, catholic and independent schools were invited to apply to accompany the students on the overseas study tour.
History teacher at Melbourne Girls Secondary College, Sheryl Kerwick, was also selected.
Cr Smith said his role would be as teacher chaperone for the year 10 students, seven girls and three boys.
“We will travel to significant Australian war sites and memorials in Singapore, Vietnam and Japan in April,” he said.
“The group plans to be in Tokyo, Japan on April 25 for a special Anzac Day ceremony.
“I am very honoured, humbled and excited to have been selected to participate in the 2006 Spirit of Anzac Prize Tour.
“I have always had an interest in the Anzac tradition, history and spirit.
“For many years, before I was elected to local government, I attended the dawn Anzac Day service at the Shrine and march in the city.
“Since being elected to the Shire of Cranbourne and now, the City of Casey, I have attended the Narre Warren dawn service and breakfast and later, the Cranbourne RSL march and service each Anzac Day.
“In 2003, I was privileged to have spent Anzac Day with the Australian peacekeeping forces in East Timor”.
Cr Smith said he had always taken a special interest in his brother Murray’s research into his paternal grandfather’s war service.
George Henry Smith was a highly decorated soldier who served in the British Army in WWI and the Australian Army in WWII.
Cr Smith is arranging for a set of ‘replica’ medals to be made and intends to wear them proudly each Anzac Day and Remembrance Day.
He organises an Anzac Day ceremony at his school, attended by almost 1000 people annually.
Guest speakers at the school have included former RSL State president Bruce Ruxton, in one of his last official functions before he retired, current RSL State president, MajorGeneral David McLachlan, New Zealand ConsulGeneral Mark Ingram, mayors, councillors and parliamentarians.
Cr Smith said the school was disappointed when General Peter Cosgrove had accepted an invitation to attend in 2003 but had to cancel two days before the ceremony due to the escalating conflicts in Iraq.
“Students eagerly volunteer to play roles in the ceremony taking on roles as readers, singers and flagbearers,” Cr Smith said.
At the annual ceremony, he talks about the research he has conducted into his copy of the famous ‘Cheops Pyramid’ photograph of the 11th AIF Battalion taken in Egypt in January, 1915.
“The battalion of soldiers from Western Australia was one of the first to land at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli on 25 April 1915,” he said.
The photograph shows almost 850 soldiers during a break in their training, of which only 30 survived the war.
Cr Smith also displays an old Kodak camera that was taken to Europe by an Australian soldier and challenges the students to think about what horrific images the camera and its owner may have witnessed and captured on film.
