None of the original Anzacs are left, of course. Yet as we approach the centenary of the first Gallipoli landings on April 25, 1915, their deeds and sacrifices become, if anything, more central to our national memory than ever. Just look at the pilgrimages by young Australians each year to Anzac Cove, Villers-Bretonneux and Kokoda. Who could have foretold this 50 years ago? In the 1960s, as Australian soldiers again fought overseas in a bitterly divisive war in Vietnam, virtually everyone in the academic world confidently predicted Anzac Day would fade into insignificance as one by one the veterans of two world wars went to their graves. Don Rowe, the president of the NSW Returned and Services League, agrees. A veteran of the Vietnam War, as are most of his fellow leaders in the RSL, he says: ''If you'd asked me 25 years ago who would be taking part in Sydney's Anzac Day march in 2011, I'd have said, 'Ten men, two dogs and that'll be it.' '' Instead the reverse has happened. Although we will never again witness the 50,000-strong marches of the 1920s and late '40s, the numbers in Sydney have remained remarkably stable at 18,000 for a decade. Of course, the rules are different, says Rowe. ''Most World War II veterans aren't marching, and the Korean war veterans aren't young either. But the gap has been taken up by the younger veterans and those serving in the defence forces.'' That is a massive change. ''In the classic days of the Anzac Day march, the only people allowed to march were men who had seen active service, plus nursing sisters,'' says Dr Peter Stanley, head of the centre for historical research at the National Museum of Australia. ''Even serving women who hadn't seen active service weren't necessarily allowed to march. The march belonged to those who had seen active service. That taboo is long broken. Now we not only see people who have served in uniform but not seen active service, but also those who have never served in uniform, but have a connection to those who served - families, for example.'' So how will Anzac Day change in the next 25 years? Will the current level of interest, in the build-up to the Gallipoli centenary, last beyond November 11, 2018, when we commemorate the emotional 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, the end of the ''war to end all wars''? And, as Anzac Day changes, will it do so for better or worse? Graham Seal, professor of folklore at Curtin University in Perth, wrote Inventing Anzac: The Digger and National Mythology. He believes Anzac Day has become the focal point of a new form of nationalism as younger generations ''seek to express their idea of Australian identity … by wrapping themselves in the flag and giving every sign of a particular and profound attachment to an Anzac ideal''. Look at what has happened to the dawn service, he says. It began, more or less spontaneously, in the 1920s, with old soldiers and their loved ones wanting ''a simple, silent observation as a balance against the parades and ceremonies later in the day''. But in the past 25 years, as the dawn service became ''the most symbolic part of the new popular nationalism … the whole thing has become something of a circus, with speeches, flyovers, big screens showing collages of military history. Presumably, people are finding it quite acceptable otherwise they wouldn't go. Certainly the numbers are enormous.'' The most obvious example of ''an over-the-top Anzac Day event'', Seal says, was Channel Seven's Sunrise program broadcast of the dawn service at Currumbin Beach on the Gold Coast in 2007. It is probably best remembered for the political furore it caused - a newspaper falsely accused the then opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, of requesting a ''fake'' dawn service at Long Tan in Vietnam so he could appear live on the show. The next year Sunrise returned to Currumbin Beach for its Anzac Day broadcast, but again, Seal says, ''it was a televisual event, which ended with John Williamson singing The Band Played Waltzing Matilda''. It was ''a variety show, almost unrecognisable as a dawn service. I'm not saying this is bad, just that this seems to be the way Anzac Day is going.'' Stanley agrees technology has influenced the way we celebrate: ''Everyone focuses on the marchers and those who go along to watch. But I would argue that for the past 40 years most Australians have commemorated Anzac Day by watching TV. That has been the hidden Anzac Day.'' This is important, he says, because it has added another vested interest - TV producers such as Adam Boland, the guru behind the Sunrise broadcast, looking for new and innovative ways of marking the day. Stanley says the most obvious change we will notice in the next few years is the dwindling number of veterans in the marches. ''That's not so noticeable in the big cities, but it is really visible in smaller centres. The number of World War II veterans, particularly, is diminishing, rapidly and sadly. And the generations replacing them are not nearly so numerous. ''There were 50,000 Australians who served in Vietnam and around 50,000 who have served in peacekeeping operations since. Even though Australia seems to be involved in continuous war, it has relatively small numbers involved. ''The people who control the marches - basically the RSL - are coming to terms with that change. Sometimes they come to terms with it by welcoming [other marchers], sometimes they discourage them. But over the next 10 years, we'll see the marches getting smaller.'' Rowe argues that in NSW, and most other states, a sensible compromise has been reached which forbids relatives marching with the veterans (''much as people wanted to march with their fathers and grandfathers, we found we couldn't see the veterans''), but allows them to march behind the main parade. In fact, he says, ''we're actually encouraging people to march and carry their father's old banners. Descendants of the World War I veterans have formed themselves into an association, and we are encouraging the descendants of the World War II veterans to do the same.'' Likewise Rowe points out that the Sydney march involves other nations which have been allies in various conflicts. These include New Zealanders, of course - too often the forgotten Anzacs for Australians who embrace April 25 as a substitute national day - but also Korean and Vietnamese. Rowe believes the future of Anzac Day in its current format is assured ''for as long as we've got a defence force''. Australia's involvement in the Gulf Wars and Afghanistan, and peacekeeping operations in places such as East Timor, ensure our military past is still relevant. And anyway, he says, ''young people are much more aware of Australia's history these days''. Stanley objects to any suggestion that visiting foreign battlefields has become a rite of passage for young Australians. ''I think that is exaggerated,'' he says. ''Ten times more kids go to schoolies' week in Surfers Paradise than go to Anzac Cove in a whole year. How many go to Gallipoli? Maybe 10,000. You get more people at a suburban footy game, but you don't call that a rite of passage.'' But he agrees there is no chance, as there was in the 1970s, that Anzac Day will sink lower in the Australian consciousness. Why? Because the day has been transformed from a largely volunteer-run commemoration to an essential part of government. ''In the past decade or so Anzac Day has been consciously marketed and managed by official bodies of all kinds,'' Stanley says. ''It won't be allowed to die. Anzac Day no longer has an organic life. It is a managed event. It can be managed sympathetically or unsympathetically, but it is no longer left to its own devices. ''There is a [federal government] interdepartmental committee looking at the Gallipoli centenary. It will provide guidance, funds, support. Anzac Day is a product now, almost a brand that is treated very carefully by the stakeholders who want it to continue - politicians of all stripes, the Department of Veterans' Affairs, the ex-servicemen's organisations. ''They are the main custodians of the brand, and they largely determine what happens because these are major public events that cost a lot of money and are televised.'' Ownership of Anzac Day, Stanley argues, has passed from the veterans to a self-perpetuating bureaucracy. ''People die, but governments are forever. Lots of Australians want to subscribe to Anzac Day, but they don't feel ownership any more. So what is left is this official celebration. My guess is that we'll see it turn into even more of a managed media event in the future and less of a day owned by people and communities themselves.'' Seal says there have always been two strands in Anzac Day - the formal and the folkloric. The formal has been represented by the official parades, the dawn services and the wreath laying, while the folkloric - the games of two-up, the jokes and banter, the boozing - was an equally vital part of the veterans' reunions. Traditionally Anzac Day was divided in two: commemoration in the morning, celebration after noon. Today that distinction is blurred. Seal points to the relatively recent development of the Anzac breakfast, usually a sausage sizzle run by the RSL or local community group to fill the gap between the dawn service and the parade. ''The Anzac breakfast has only been going for around 20 years,'' says Seal. ''It has taken over from a previous tradition which belonged only to the veterans themselves. They would meet to have a quiet moment before the dawn service. It always involved alcohol, usually a tot of rum - a conscious reference to the tot of rum the original Anzacs were given before they went over the side at Gallipoli in 1915.'' So what does Seal expect to see at Anzac Day 2036? ''More of the same. Greater expansion of the dawn service. More travelling to other sites like Villers-Bretonneux, Kokoda and Long Tan as well as Gallipoli. ''But possibly it will get to the point where there is a reaction, where people want to go back to something a bit more basic.''
Passing generations ... a boy reaches out to Diggers during an Anzac Day march on George Street. The numbers of marchers in Sydney have remained stable at 18,000 for a decade.
Graph
None of the original Anzacs are left, of course. Yet as we approach the centenary of the first Gallipoli landings on April 25, 1915, their deeds and sacrifices become, if anything, more central to our national memory than ever. Just look at the pilgrimages by young Australians each year to Anzac Cove, Villers-Bretonneux and Kokoda.
Who could have foretold this 50 years ago? In the 1960s, as Australian soldiers again fought overseas in a bitterly divisive war in Vietnam, virtually everyone in the academic world confidently predicted Anzac Day would fade into insignificance as one by one the veterans of two world wars went to their graves.
Don Rowe, the president of the NSW Returned and Services League, agrees. A veteran of the Vietnam War, as are most of his fellow leaders in the RSL, he says: ''If you'd asked me 25 years ago who would be taking part in Sydney's Anzac Day march in 2011, I'd have said, 'Ten men, two dogs and that'll be it.' ''
Instead the reverse has happened. Although we will never again witness the 50,000-strong marches of the 1920s and late '40s, the numbers in Sydney have remained remarkably stable at 18,000 for a decade.
Of course, the rules are different, says Rowe. ''Most World War II veterans aren't marching, and the Korean war veterans aren't young either. But the gap has been taken up by the younger veterans and those serving in the defence forces.''
That is a massive change. ''In the classic days of the Anzac Day march, the only people allowed to march were men who had seen active service, plus nursing sisters,'' says Dr Peter Stanley, head of the centre for historical research at the National Museum of Australia.
''Even serving women who hadn't seen active service weren't necessarily allowed to march. The march belonged to those who had seen active service. That taboo is long broken. Now we not only see people who have served in uniform but not seen active service, but also those who have never served in uniform, but have a connection to those who served - families, for example.''
So how will Anzac Day change in the next 25 years? Will the current level of interest, in the build-up to the Gallipoli centenary, last beyond November 11, 2018, when we commemorate the emotional 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, the end of the ''war to end all wars''?
And, as Anzac Day changes, will it do so for better or worse?
Graham Seal, professor of folklore at Curtin University in Perth, wrote Inventing Anzac: The Digger and National Mythology. He believes Anzac Day has become the focal point of a new form of nationalism as younger generations ''seek to express their idea of Australian identity … by wrapping themselves in the flag and giving every sign of a particular and profound attachment to an Anzac ideal''.
Look at what has happened to the dawn service, he says. It began, more or less spontaneously, in the 1920s, with old soldiers and their loved ones wanting ''a simple, silent observation as a balance against the parades and ceremonies later in the day''.
But in the past 25 years, as the dawn service became ''the most symbolic part of the new popular nationalism … the whole thing has become something of a circus, with speeches, flyovers, big screens showing collages of military history. Presumably, people are finding it quite acceptable otherwise they wouldn't go. Certainly the numbers are enormous.''
The most obvious example of ''an over-the-top Anzac Day event'', Seal says, was Channel Seven's Sunrise program broadcast of the dawn service at Currumbin Beach on the Gold Coast in 2007. It is probably best remembered for the political furore it caused - a newspaper falsely accused the then opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, of requesting a ''fake'' dawn service at Long Tan in Vietnam so he could appear live on the show.
The next year Sunrise returned to Currumbin Beach for its Anzac Day broadcast, but again, Seal says, ''it was a televisual event, which ended with John Williamson singing The Band Played Waltzing Matilda''. It was ''a variety show, almost unrecognisable as a dawn service. I'm not saying this is bad, just that this seems to be the way Anzac Day is going.''
Stanley agrees technology has influenced the way we celebrate: ''Everyone focuses on the marchers and those who go along to watch. But I would argue that for the past 40 years most Australians have commemorated Anzac Day by watching TV. That has been the hidden Anzac Day.''
This is important, he says, because it has added another vested interest - TV producers such as Adam Boland, the guru behind the Sunrise broadcast, looking for new and innovative ways of marking the day.
Stanley says the most obvious change we will notice in the next few years is the dwindling number of veterans in the marches. ''That's not so noticeable in the big cities, but it is really visible in smaller centres. The number of World War II veterans, particularly, is diminishing, rapidly and sadly. And the generations replacing them are not nearly so numerous.
''There were 50,000 Australians who served in Vietnam and around 50,000 who have served in peacekeeping operations since. Even though Australia seems to be involved in continuous war, it has relatively small numbers involved.
''The people who control the marches - basically the RSL - are coming to terms with that change. Sometimes they come to terms with it by welcoming [other marchers], sometimes they discourage them. But over the next 10 years, we'll see the marches getting smaller.''
Rowe argues that in NSW, and most other states, a sensible compromise has been reached which forbids relatives marching with the veterans (''much as people wanted to march with their fathers and grandfathers, we found we couldn't see the veterans''), but allows them to march behind the main parade.
In fact, he says, ''we're actually encouraging people to march and carry their father's old banners. Descendants of the World War I veterans have formed themselves into an association, and we are encouraging the descendants of the World War II veterans to do the same.''
Likewise Rowe points out that the Sydney march involves other nations which have been allies in various conflicts. These include New Zealanders, of course - too often the forgotten Anzacs for Australians who embrace April 25 as a substitute national day - but also Korean and Vietnamese.
Rowe believes the future of Anzac Day in its current format is assured ''for as long as we've got a defence force''. Australia's involvement in the Gulf Wars and Afghanistan, and peacekeeping operations in places such as East Timor, ensure our military past is still relevant. And anyway, he says, ''young people are much more aware of Australia's history these days''.
Stanley objects to any suggestion that visiting foreign battlefields has become a rite of passage for young Australians. ''I think that is exaggerated,'' he says. ''Ten times more kids go to schoolies' week in Surfers Paradise than go to Anzac Cove in a whole year. How many go to Gallipoli? Maybe 10,000. You get more people at a suburban footy game, but you don't call that a rite of passage.''
But he agrees there is no chance, as there was in the 1970s, that Anzac Day will sink lower in the Australian consciousness. Why? Because the day has been transformed from a largely volunteer-run commemoration to an essential part of government.
''In the past decade or so Anzac Day has been consciously marketed and managed by official bodies of all kinds,'' Stanley says. ''It won't be allowed to die. Anzac Day no longer has an organic life. It is a managed event. It can be managed sympathetically or unsympathetically, but it is no longer left to its own devices.
''There is a [federal government] interdepartmental committee looking at the Gallipoli centenary. It will provide guidance, funds, support. Anzac Day is a product now, almost a brand that is treated very carefully by the stakeholders who want it to continue - politicians of all stripes, the Department of Veterans' Affairs, the ex-servicemen's organisations.
''They are the main custodians of the brand, and they largely determine what happens because these are major public events that cost a lot of money and are televised.''
Ownership of Anzac Day, Stanley argues, has passed from the veterans to a self-perpetuating bureaucracy. ''People die, but governments are forever. Lots of Australians want to subscribe to Anzac Day, but they don't feel ownership any more. So what is left is this official celebration. My guess is that we'll see it turn into even more of a managed media event in the future and less of a day owned by people and communities themselves.''
Seal says there have always been two strands in Anzac Day - the formal and the folkloric. The formal has been represented by the official parades, the dawn services and the wreath laying, while the folkloric - the games of two-up, the jokes and banter, the boozing - was an equally vital part of the veterans' reunions.
Traditionally Anzac Day was divided in two: commemoration in the morning, celebration after noon. Today that distinction is blurred. Seal points to the relatively recent development of the Anzac breakfast, usually a sausage sizzle run by the RSL or local community group to fill the gap between the dawn service and the parade.
''The Anzac breakfast has only been going for around 20 years,'' says Seal. ''It has taken over from a previous tradition which belonged only to the veterans themselves. They would meet to have a quiet moment before the dawn service. It always involved alcohol, usually a tot of rum - a conscious reference to the tot of rum the original Anzacs were given before they went over the side at Gallipoli in 1915.''
So what does Seal expect to see at Anzac Day 2036? ''More of the same. Greater expansion of the dawn service. More travelling to other sites like Villers-Bretonneux, Kokoda and Long Tan as well as Gallipoli.
''But possibly it will get to the point where there is a reaction, where people want to go back to something a bit more basic.''
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