IT will be an Anzac Day like no other before.
Only ten days before, 36 students from St Joseph’s School in Stanthorpe, within Toowoomba Diocese, left for a first-time ever International Tour with six staff members and suitcases filled with Australian pride.
Today they will visit the Western Front battlefields of the Somme, Pozieres, Villers Bretonneux and Fromelles, also attending the Last Post ceremony at Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium.
The group had been rehearsing the French National Anthem and placed specially-crafted wreaths from Australia in what senior teacher Mary Roberts described as “an extraordinary opportunity”.
“The wreaths had been generously donated to lay and we’re very proud to have done so,” she said.
“The students were excited to be part of the ceremony to open a Bridge of Friendship between France and Australia due to the school’s proximity to Amiens, in Australia, and the significance of World War One to our region.
“This is a replica Bailey Bridge, designed and built by Australian Army engineers (sappers).”
Of the 36 students, Jessica Pradella, in Year 10, placed a hand-crafted posy for her great, great, great uncle, Arthur Vincent Moore, who died on April 25, 1918 in France, during the First World War.
“I am very excited that we have been given this incredible opportunity to travel overseas as part of the International Study Tour,” she said before departure on April 14,” she said.
“I am extremely humbled to be visiting and laying flowers – lovingly sewn by my grandmother and made from my mother’s formal and wedding dress.
“Vin, as he preferred to be known, was laid to rest at the Adelaide Cemetery, Villers-Bretonneux, Somme, France.
“The journey overseas has given me the chance to learn about my descendants, both Arthur Vincent and (his brother) Archibald Norman Moore, and how their lives were cut so tragically short, like many others, during war time.”
Jessica’s Mum, Naomi Pradella, along with her husband Michael, parishioners of St Joseph’s, Stanthorpe, said that there must have been sadness that the brothers were “so very young” when they died.
“Back then, there were no cars and little communication so they would have been quite isolated before heading to war,” Mrs Pradella said.
“ (They had) no family of their own either before passing. Such a tremendous sacrifice for giving us the privilege to live our lives the way we do now.”
Arthur and Archibald were the brothers of Mrs Pradella’s grandmothers father.
“My grandmother was born in 1920 so her uncles died before she was born,” she said of the brothers who had nine other siblings, the eldest were married and volunteered for the war.
While on the tour, the students and staff also visited Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the Tower of London, the Natural History Museum, Globe Theatre and London Eye – plus a musical theatre show on the West End and a Europa League quarter final football match at London Stadium.
“In Paris, they climbed the Eiffel Tower, visit Montmartre, the Louvre, Musee D’Orsay, Arc de Triomphe and cruised down the Seine,” Mrs Roberts said.
