It was the 100^th anniversary of the signing of the First World War Armistice. A crowd gathered at the war memorial on Calle Calle Street to commemorate the arrival of peace and to pay their respects.

Eden RSL sub-branch members conducted the service, prayers were offered and The Last Post was sounded followed by one minute’s silence. 

The Australian anthem was sung and floral attributes were placed by the cenotaph. 

As the service concluded, Ted Cleary of Eden shared history of his uncle’s involvement in the 18^th battalion.

“Edward McGlashan was private number 1721 and joined on the 19th of May in 1915,” he said.

“He was a horse handler who worked with the 60 odd thousand horses that needed to be saddled up and fed, with bullet carts and everything to do with preparing them for the war.”

Mr Cleary said people like his uncle are often forgotten, those who were not there to fight at war but died in conflict.

“People tend to forget about the slogging of those poor buggers,” he said.

“He was shot in the neck, they fixed him up but then he died from his recurring injury.”

Mr Cleary said his uncle was killed in action on September 19, 1916 in Ypres.

Eden resident Benedetta Bennett shared the story of her grandfather who was part of a special tunneling battalion.

Sergeant Alexander Bennett had spent two years as a tunneler during the time of the first battle of Ypres, he died on Hill 60 on April 9, 1917.

“He would be digging tunnels for them to plant mines and blow up the enemy, they would be digging with limited tools so they had to use their feet to push into the soft mud,” Ms Bennett said.

“Little did they know that the enemy would be building tunnels the other way close by.”

Ms Bennett said she had read about the day her father was killed.

“What happened was one of the guardians at the entrance of the tunnel had moved off and left them all inside, they were attacked with some taken as prisoners,” she said.

Lest we forget.