Principal's Message

ANZAC Day

After being thwarted for successive years by various COVID protocols and then Holiday date clashes, our whole College community was, once again, able to gather together in the Sports Centre on Wednesday morning to commemorate a very special ANZAC Day Service. Several of our College Prefects led the assembly as they read prayers, poems and The Ode prior to viewing the symbolic laying of wreaths in Centenary Park by Junior School Head Boy, Patrick Clarke and College Head Prefect, Jamie D’Agostino. Deputy Head Prefect, Jack Hansen-Knarhoi played the Last Post and Rouse. It was a wonderful commemoration of all service men and women, and on behalf of all former Trinity students who have served their country. 

The ‘ANZAC tradition’ - the ideals of courage, endurance and true mateship - was established on 25 April 1915, when Australian and New Zealand troops landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The long campaign lasted eight months and resulted in some 25,000 Australian casualties, including nearly 9000 who were killed or died of diseases shortly after. Many of these men were only teenagers, some as young as 16, and some, as our College’s rich history will attest to, were actually students from this school. The Honour Boards in the Trinity College Chapel commemorate our Old Boys who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.  The names of 139 young men lost in WWI, WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War are situated within the most sacred space of the College, and the spirit of our Old Boys is honoured each time we gather in the Chapel in prayer and reflection. 

Every year we gather on ANZAC Day, not to celebrate war, but rather to remember those who have served our country during conflict and crisis. We remember those who are currently deployed overseas, we remember those who have recently served our country, and we respectfully look back on those many thousands who have served our country as part of our relatively short history. We remember too, those on the home front – the contributions and sacrifice of family and loved ones was, and still is, of no lesser service. 

ANZAC day is not merely a date on the calendar, but rather it gives reference to a sense of spirit- on the qualities of past generations of Australians who in hardship displayed courage, discipline, self-sacrifice, self-reliance, mate ship and had the conviction to do what is right.  As individuals, we could all do with some of these ANZAC qualities and commemorating ANZAC day allows us to reflect and draw upon such values. I believe that this is what the ANZAC spirit asks of us, both on ANZAC Day and, in fact every day. It is as much about what it challenges us to do in our lives and relationships today as it is a commemoration of battles past. 

In acknowledging and honouring our service men and women, I trust that we continue to appreciate their service and seek to follow their example. I hope and pray that we can all be instilled with some of their qualities. 

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them."

                                                                                  L Binyon

Lest we forget.

Mr Darren O’Neill 

Principal