Pipe-major Bryan Mitchell will be one of three pipers playing at 6am in Cambridge as part of a worldwide “Battle’s Over” commemoration. Photo – Michael Jeans.
The haunting sound of bagpipes will ring out across Cambridge tomorrow, with solo pipers playing at the Hautapu Cemetery, St Andrew’s Church and the Cambridge Cenotaph in the early morning as part of a worldwide “Battle’s Over” commemoration.
They will be three of 11 pipers from the Cambridge, Te Awamutu, Hamilton and Te Kuiti pipe bands playing “When the Battle is Over” at 6am at locations across Waipā to mark Armistice Day. Cambridge and Districts Pipe Band’s pipe-major Bryan Mitchell said the chance to hear the pipers in the early morning will be a “one in a hundred years’ event”, with 6am being the traditional time of the military reveille.
After the early morning lament, the Cambridge Pipe Band, alternating with the Cambridge Brass Band, will be playing from 9.20am outside the clock tower in Cambridge.
At 9.55am the Armistice Parade will start, travelling down Victoria St from the clock tower. A pipe band of 35 – 40 people from around the country will be leading the parade, followed by a group of navy reservists, military veterans, two NZ Army vehicles, followed by a convoy of 6 – 10 historic military vehicles (most likely from WW2).
The parade will finish at the Town Hall where the centenary service will begin at approximately 10.05am. There will be a two-minute silence at 11am, marking the fact that the Armistice was officially declared on the 11th hour of the 11 day of the 11 month in 1918. Wreathes will be laid at the cenotaph while the band plays. Then the band will then head to Karapiro for the Armistice events out there, where they will play at 12pm.
