The community of Kurri Kurri came together on Friday to commemorate the Centenary of Armistice.
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The focus of the celebrations was a moving street parade which featured students from Kurri Kurri Public School carrying national flags from the birthplaces of the men from Kurri Kurri who fought and died in WWI as well as descendants of local WWI Diggers.
Students also marched with signs depicting the battalions that all the local enlisted soldiers fought with.
The festivities were augmented by a flyover from a vintage Tiger Moth plane. The Tiger Moth also celebrated its 87th birthday on Friday. The parade also received a low-flying and high-speed visit from a Hawk 127 jet.
Member for Paterson Meryl Swanson congratulated all concerned for their efforts in bringing the Centenary of Armistice dreams to life while also marveling at the amount of community spirit present in Kurri Kurri.
Kurri Kurri Public School principal Victoria Sturman agreed.
“It’s a fantastic feeling to witness all of this,” she said. “All of the events that the kids have had an involvement in – you don’t get this every day. The opportunity for our kids to be a part of this is just fantastic.
“Just seeing all of the smiles on the kids faces and the community lining the streets cheering them on it says a lot about of community spirit and Kurri certainly has a lot of community spirit.”
Historian John Gilliam, who was one of the driving forces behind the Kurri Armistice activities, said Friday’s parade was the realisation of a lot of hard work.
“It’s a great sense of relief for us to see it all come together,” he said. “It was one year ago next Saturday that we made the declaration to do all of this.”
Mr Gillam, along with fellow historian Yvonne Fletcher, has also just finished writing the book No Shirkers From Kurri which focuses on the sacrifice made by the town during WW!.
Friday’s festivities represented the culmination of a raft, of Armistice-related activities in Kurri, including the repatriation of the medals of Private William Kelly, the re-creation, by Kurri Kurri Men’s Shed, of the school’s honour roll and the commissioning of a mural depicting WWI heroine Maud Butler.
