6pm The Ode of Rememberance

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As it approaches 6pm you will notice people start to turn off their mobile phones and ask kids to turn off electronic devices. This is to get ready for the reading of the Ode of Rememberance.

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Guests at the CLG RSL will be asked to be upstanding.

The lights will dim and the Cross of Rememberance will be lit.

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The Last Post will play and the Ode will be recited by a designated person.

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They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them

Guests will repeat " We will remember them"

Rouse or Reveille will play

The designated person will say "Lest we forget"

Guests will repeat "Lest We Forget"

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One minute of silence will then follow.

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The lights will be turned up.

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The Ode of Remembrance – often referred to simply as The Ode – is actually only the fourth stanzas of Laurence Binyon’s poem, For the Fallen.

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He wrote it less than two months after the outbreak of World War I, in response to the heavy casualties suffered by the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front. Appearing in The Times on 21 September 1918, the sentiments it expressed were in stark contrast to the tone of news reports and other poems at the time.

The Ode has been read at commemorative services in Australia since 1921, expressing the nation’s collective feelings of respect and loss for the service people who gave their lives during World War I, and in all conflicts since.

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‘Lest we forget’ is not a part of the poem; however, it has become accepted practice to say it at the completion of The Ode.

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Silence  is included in commemorative services as a sign of respect. It offers a time for reflection on the significance of the whole ceremony.