Veteran thankful for, moved by Anzac service
Anzac day in Gore began in the pitch-black cold with a dawn parade down Mersey St to the cenotaph.
A roughly 600-strong crowd, young and old, encircled the monument with returned service men and women at its centre.
A small patch of turned earth, with neat rows of white crosses, to the left of the memorial, stood to further represent lives lost in war.
Local Anglican Rev Bruce Cavanagh gave a tribute and then led a prayer before announcing the laying of the wreaths.
Gore RSA president Bradley Bridgman and Gore District Mayor Ben Bell both laid tributes.
The Dawn Parade makes its way through Gore.
They were followed by returned service men and women from the Malaya, Vietnam, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.
The crowd then flowed into the Gore RSA behind to warm up with hot drinks and conversation.
Two-time cancer survivor and East Timor veteran Nigel Cuckow said he felt like he had been cared for and honoured by Southland RSAs.
Mr Cuckow said the Gore faction had supported him through two battles with mouth cancer.
He said the association twice supported him financially while he went through treatment and was unable to work.
Father and son Nigel (right) and Jack Cuckow warm up in the Gore RSA after the dawn parade.
The help from the RSA left him overwhelmed, he said, as he was used to doing things on his own.
"In a situation like that, they've supported me," he said.
"It's like a family."
The Invercargill RSA also paid for the new pair of glasses he was wearing using proceeds from its poppy fund, he said.
When he first returned from serving in East Timor in 2002, he felt he had come back to "nothing".
The Hokonui Celtic Pipe Band, led by Martyn Turnbull, fronted Mataura's Anzac parade.
After being a Territorial soldier, with a weapon in his hand patrolling for seven months, coming back to his regular job felt "different", he said.
It took him 20 years and the help of the "strong" Gore RSA to make him feel like a returned serviceman.
Mr Cuckow's son Jack was there to support him.
A couple of hours later in Mataura, where the temperature had dropped to 1°C, a crowd of 60 moved through the mist to the town's cenotaph.
The parade was led by the Hokonui Celtic Pipe Band and the memorial heard words from former RSA president Dave Mackenzie and pastor Mike Whale.
ella.scott-fleming@alliedpress.co.nz
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