SOLDIERS’ GRAVES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20276, 10 April 1934, Page 6

SOLDIERS’ GRAVES.

To be Strewn With Poppies on Anzac Day. BROMLEY CEMETERY. Poppies for remembrance will be scattered on the graves in the soldiers’ plot in the Bromley Cemetery on Anzac Day, after the united service in the King Edward Barracks. A decision to this effect was reached at last evening’s meeting of the executive of the Christchurch Returned Soldiers’ Association. The question was introduced by Mr W. E. Leadle)*, who said he thought the association had been rather remiss in acknowledging the splendid work done by the City Council at the soldiers’ plot in the Bromley Cemetery. The association, he said, had never paid an official visit to the plot and Anzac Day was the most appropriate occasion for that visit. The poppy was the emblem of remembrance and he proposed that the association should carry that idea a step further and visit the soldiers’ plot immediately after the Anzac Day service. There were 129 graves in the plot at Bromley, and he proposed that returned men taking part in the' P.arade should be invited to hand their poppies to officials appointed by the association and then placed on the * graves in remembrance and that the president say a few words at the cemetery. He moved to this effect. The motion was seconded by Mr B. O. Priddis. The president (the Rev F. T. Read) said that since the previous meeting of the executive he had attended at least three burials of returned men in the Bromley and the Sydenham cemeteries. On each of these occasions the returned men present lined up at the close of the service and he had repeated several verses of remembrance. Mr T. L. Drummond expressed the opinion that instead of the association’s wreath being deposited on the stand in front of ’i the - Christchurch Cathedral, it should'be taken to the soldiers’ plot at the Bromley Cemetery. He said that that - was what> w&s done in Auckland. Mr ileadley’s* motion was carried.