MUSICIANS have helped retirement home residents remember Anzac Day in a year without the customary services.
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Rose and David Foulds were among those helping residents wake to the strains of familiar Anzac Day music.
The father and daughter played the Last Post and sang the national anthem at the Bendigo Retirement Village for dawn.
Read more: Day dawns on Anzac like none before
Kate Foulds said initially her husband and daughter were just going to play from their Spring Gully driveway to pay their respects.
Mrs Foulds had suggested Mr Foulds pull out his flugehorn, because he had a bit of extra time on his hands.
But then they realised at the nearby retirement village they might reach people who would appreciate waking up to the sounds of Anzac music.
The pair played and sang at dawn, moving around to reach the most number of people.
Mrs Foulds said hopefully it would be moving for people, a way they could reflect and pay their respects.
Village manager Neil Drummond said it had been devastating for residents to not have a dawn service, so he thought a wandering last post would be excellent.
Like other Australians, many residents paid their respects from their driveways.
"It's a very emotional thing for most of them," Mr Drummond said.
"Our ages range from 56 up to 96. You've got Vietnam vets, you've got people who've been in pretty much every war, except World War I."
Soprano Rose is a member of the Bendigo Youth Choir, which would normally sing at the Dawn Service.
Instead the group plan to release a recording of song 'The Letter', written by Bendigo musician Valmai Harris.
The recording took place at a reunion of choir members in 2019 to mark the group's 35th anniversary.
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The song tells the story of Ms Harris's grandfather, who survived World War I, only to be felled by the Spanish flu.
His wife and three children were met at Port Melbourne docks with just a letter.
Bendigo Youth Choir manager Rosalie Rogers said the recording would soon be available on iTunes.
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