Aubrey Cotton-Stapleton may live in Wangaratta now but she remains closely linked to Bobinawarrah and like many others enjoyed celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Bobinawarrah Soldier Memorial Hall on Sunday, 9 November.

Aubrey attended Hurdle Creek West state school, maybe three miles from the Bobinawarrah hall, from 1947 until 1952.

“We knew the hall well with any end of year concerts and I think dances held there,” she said.

Aubrey was encouraged to put some of her memories down about the hall in his own poetic style.

Remembrance Day

By Aubrey Cotton-Stapleton

Today I stood with heroes

The heroes were the souls long gone

The soldiers who went to war

And never returned home

It was a little country ceremony

For Remembrance Day

The eleventh day of the eleventh month

The sky was blue

The gum trees standing tall and strong

The bugle played

The sound the soldiers heard

From the trenches and the mud

From the desert heat to tropical jungles

We stood in silence as this little community

Listened to the roll call

Of all those who had lived close by

Who would have gone to this local school

Ten enlisted

Three didn’t return

Three from one family

The names read out quietly and with reverence

The next community only three miles away

Twenty-seven young men went away

To do their bit for king and country

Ten didn’t come home

Their bones lying in foreign fields

Eighty years on I felt them here today

There were names I have known all my life

Known since I lived there as a child

The honour boards with their names in gold

Hang on the walls of the old country hall

These men were here today

In the whisper of the trees

On the breeze as it touched my skin and thus my soul

The old words were read

‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We shall remember them’

And we did remember

And we do remember

We salute them

They were here with us today