By CASEY NEILL
AN INTERACTIVE tribute to Greater Dandenong’s World War I connections now traverses the municipality.
The council launched the Anzac Trail at Noble Park RSL on Friday 23 October featuring markers at nine locations.
“There are stories that belong to our community, that are significant to our community,” public art and heritage program leader Annetta Latham said.
“If we don’t tell them we just felt that we’d lose them as generations moved forward.
“For us it’s about keeping those stories alive and honouring those who have come before us.
“It’s just something that we can treasure as a community.”
The markers in the Anzac Centenary project feature “augmented reality”.
“We have tail-blazed a little on this one,” Ms Latham said.
“You can see images and read the information on the trail markers, but you can also download an app on your phone.
“You can access different photos of what happened at the site and different audio – some old speeches of councillors and mayors at the time, some other facts about what happened at that site.”
The council worked with researcher Natalie Filmer, the Dandenong and Springvale historical societies, RSLs, historians at the Shrine of Remembrance and Anzac House.
Ms Latham said they cut through the myths passed down through generations.
“We went from collecting people’s stories about what they believed or what they thought, to finding out what the facts were behind the different sites and why they were relevant,” she said.
“I know these stories now and they’ve become part of me.”
The former Dandenong Town Hall, now the Drum Theatre, was the first marker site and where recruits enlisted.
The Dandenong Drill Hall was built in 1916 and was used to drill citizen soldiers in compulsory military training, and the Noble Park marker recognises the town’s role as a soldier settlement.
Gallipoli veteran Percy Langford was Dandenong High School’s first principal and a marker honours the now-defunct Springvale Mechanics Institute, opened in 1915 and the scene of WWI fund-raisers.
A marker at Dandenong RSL honours local soldiers and one at Springvale Town Hall relates to the Springvale and Dandenong Red Cross branches which were formed out of the Great War.
The Peace Memorial Bridge on Lonsdale Street was built during the war and still features original engineering elements that were ground-breaking in their time.
“We want to make sure those stories are told,” Ms Latham said.
