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  • 7 hours ago
When the nation pauses to remember those lost in battle this weekend, it will do so to the strains of the last post. But one man in regional New South Wales is playing the tune at a different war grave each day to honour their service and remember them.

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00:03Well, a lot of them, it says less we forget on the bottom of the headstone, and at least
00:08I'm not going to forget.
00:11If they've had relatives, if they're maybe the last of their line, there's nobody left
00:15to sort of come and see them, and I don't want them to be forgotten.
00:20Once they get to the graves, they stand there at attention, play the last post, recite the
00:24old Plara Valley.
00:27You don't really know how it's going to go until you finish.
00:30It's big pressure, and to get it right, I take it very, very seriously.
00:35I normally practice from Australia Day up to Anzac Day.
00:382024 I did the same thing, came up to the cemetery every day to practice.
00:42Well, once I got to Anzac Day after Australia Day practicing, I thought, well, why stop?
00:45And I got a bit of an understanding of how many graves are actually up here.
00:52If I'm here with the kids, I'll ask them which driveway we go to.
00:55If I'm out of town, I pick the first grave that I see.
00:58Normally, one of the white war graves, they stand out pretty well.
01:01I put a poppy rock on there, so a little black rock.
01:04My daughters and I paint these.
01:08I'm certainly better at it than I used to be, and I do this mainly to try and contain
01:12the nerves, and it kind of works.
01:14It was absolutely terrifying, but being able to play the last post at Dad's and both my
01:19grandfather's funerals was a massive honour.
01:22That's Dad and his greens.
01:23I've sort of started my own tradition.
01:26I just want to keep practising.
01:28These people gave a lot, got injured in war, you know, being gassed or being severely injured
01:35or they just haven't coped when they came back.
01:37So it's giving back to them, making sure that if they are around, that they are remembered.
01:49I don't have a lot of weight compared to them.
01:49I hope that the center of the window was a little bit on your mind is a little bit.
01:50So if you've got a lot of weight, you'll see what happened.
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