In the early hours of that day, five members of the Association of Returned Sailors and Soldiers Clubs who had been attending the Association’s Anzac eve annual general meeting and dinner in the Martin Place Blue Tea Rooms (between Castlereagh and Pitt Street), were wending their way home when they saw an elderly lady moving to place a sheaf of flowers on the then bare granite plinth of the Cenotaph in Sydney’s Martin Place.

When she stumbled and dropped the flowers they helped her and awkwardly watched her place the flowers; when she commenced to pray they silently joined her. The men were Jim Davidson, Ernie Rushbrooke, George Patterson, Len Stickler and Bill Gamble. They recounted their experience, and to old soldiers it brought back memories of other dawns.

The creation of the Cenotaph had heightened consciousness of commemoration and, in response to a motion by Rushbrooke, its honorary secretary, the Association decided to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph on Anzac Day 1928 at 4.30 am, which was when the landing commenced at Anzac Cove on 25th April, 1915. A small number attended this first service, including the five men mentioned. Patterson laid the wreath. The service was most simple but its solemnity created a deep impression and ensured the continuance of the Ceremony. With the completion of the Cenotaph, attendance grew rapidly, so that by 1931, it was up to 800.

THE CENOTAPH

Mr Fred Davidson, the then metropolitan vice president of the RSL, conceived the idea of having a suitable memorial to the dead erected in Martin Place – the site of Armistice Day ceremonies.

He was a short story writer who, as such, knew Mr H.D. McIntosh – the managing director of the Sunday Times – whom he induced to provide publicity. As a result there appeared, in that paper on 16th November, 1924, an article which read in part:

"Let us keep holy our most sacred place. New South Wales should raise a Cenotaph or Memorial Stone in Martin Place. On Armistice Day (five days previously) thousands of Australians assemble in Martin Place to honour the memory of Our Glorious Dead. What other spot so fitting? Martin Place – where our thoughts and our steps turned so often during four years of sorrow and triumph.

Martin Place – where in all the days that are to come, we, or those who will stand in our places, will gather in times of stress or joy – a place consecrated by its associations with the days when our worthwhileness as a people was being tried in the Furnace of War.

The sacred places of a Nation are not made – they are like a Nation’s songs, they come to their own without design or plan. Martin Place has come. Therefore, let us now further consecrate it by raising a memorial stone or Cenotaph – to those who died for us. Let us keep hold this most sacred and hallowed spot."