In 2014 I mentioned my involvement in a song writing project for the Gallipoli 100th anniversary. The end result of that was a set of five songs with lyrics originating from letters, a postcard and diary entries written by a group of young men from Cambridge New Zealand who served at Gallipoli.
One of the men was my great uncle Francis Asbury Paine who was killed on April 25th, ANZAC Day. The only one to survive the war was Captain John W Peake who was instrumental in organising the first of the annual ANZAC memorial services in Cambridge. Further details are available via the Cambridge Museum (note: follow the link and scroll down to locate relevant text.) Alexander Thomason wrote a letter describing the day of the first landing at Gallipoli. His letter somehow made it past the censor's pen and home to New Zealand where a large excerpt was published by the New Zealand Herald and other newspapers around the country.
Recordings of the songs were made in March 2015 with the help of young singer Imogen Abernathy and with the view to the tracks being broadcast on radio on or as near as possible to ANZAC Day.
The latest breaking news is that two of the songs are to be broadcast on Radio NZ National. Details as follows:-
Radio NZ National 'Sounds Historical'
Sunday 26th April, 8pm to 10pm
The specific song titles and approximate times are:
'Day of Days' about 8.10 pm
'Dear Mother' about 9.10 pm
For those unable to listen in on the night but still interested in hearing the songs, there will be a podcast available via the Radio NZ website.