On Anzac Day 2015 the first-ever Beachlands and Maraetai Anzac Day dawn service was held. This took place on the Sunkist Bay reserve at Beachlands, where flagpoles had been temporarily erected.
For the 2016 dawn service, the Manukau Beautification Trust constructed a temporary memorial wall as the focus of the ceremony instead. The relocatable wooden wall was painted with a faux marble finish and adorned with Anzac symbols and texts. On the front were poppies, the silhouette of a soldier, and a plain wooden cross surmounted by a quotation from the Bible ("Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends" John 15:13). On the back were a discourse on the Anzac spirit, a quotation from Laurence Binyon's famous poem 'For the Fallen' ("They shall not grow old ..."), and a dedication ("In memory of those who lost their lives and served during the wars of 1914-918 and 1939-1945 - Gallipoli - Somme - Ypres - Messines - Monte Cassino - Tobruk").
The Pohutukawa Coast ANZAC Remembrance Trust was formed later in the year with the aim of constructing a permanent memorial. However, no further dawn services were held until 2023, when the temporary memorial was brought out of storage. The photograph above was taken after the 2024 service. Plans to build a permanent memorial have been revived.
It should be noted that the nearby Beachlands Memorial Hall, despite its name, is not a war memorial hall. The second hall on the site, it was largely built by voluntary labour and opened as the Beachlands Hall in 1956. Perhaps uniquely, in 1973 it was named the Beachlands Memorial Hall to commemorate the efforts of those who built it.
Image and text: Bruce Ringer, 2024