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The Vietnam War was ending when David Arden first volunteered as a marshal in Melbourne’s 1975 Anzac Day march. It was just days before the fall of Saigon.
Arden remembers that march as drawing a big crowd.
Spectators stood four or five deep along St Kilda Road. World War I veterans marched, some of them on horseback.
Arden has missed only one year since, due to illness, and says it’s satisfying doing his bit to help one of the city’s big days to run smoothly.
He says that before the march, “people come up and say, ‘My grandfather was from the 2/8th Infantry Battalion, where do I go?’ I go to my list and direct them to the right group.”
Arden says that in the 1970s, if he told a march participant, “You need to go over there”, they would say, “Right-oh, sure”, whereas today some people are less deferential to authority. “They might say, ‘Oh? Why is that?’”
He sees his main role as sorting “the marchers into their correct order and position so that they are ready to march”. It has echoes of his former occupation as an air traffic controller at Melbourne Airport. He also served in the Army Reserve for more than 40 years.
The one Anzac Day march he missed was in 2024, when he had emergency surgery for a blocked bowel. In 2020 the Anzac Day march was cancelled because of COVID-19.
No one would begrudge him retiring as a march marshal, but he doesn’t plan to.
“I’ll be doing the march for as long as I am able to,” he says. “It’s so important to me, and the cause of commemoration and appreciation is so important.”
He points to a group of children who are near our photo shoot at the Shrine. “How many of them would know what our veterans have done?”
Arden remembers watching the march at St Kilda Road as a child.
His father, Fred Arden, served in World War II, and his grandfather, Fred snr, fought in the Boer War and WWI.
As a marshal, Arden wears his father’s “Sam Browne’ – a soldier’s leather belt and shoulder strap.
In 1975, David was in the Army Reserve when the call went out that volunteer marshals were needed for the Anzac Day march.
He feels the role is “to recognise, and help other people appreciate the huge sacrifices that veterans have made”.
He’s soldiered on when it’s been hot, cold or raining on Anzac Day.
In 2015, a man had a heart attack in St Kilda Road, and while first aid people looked after him, Arden helped divert the march down a service road.
This year, Arden will be based in Collins Street, west of Swanston Street, for about five hours before and during the march, helped by a two-way radio, mobile phone and printed schedule, before joining the march at its tail end.
Jason Cooke, the RSL Victoria’s Anzac Day chief marshal, said about Arden: “He is incredibly passionate about Anzac Day and getting veterans the recognition they deserve.
“We have around 70 volunteers acting as marshals this year. I know that we all benefit from the knowledge and experience David brings to the role.”
The Dawn Service is on at the Shrine of Remembrance at 5.30am on Saturday. The Anzac Day March from Princes Bridge to the Shrine starts at 9am followed by wreath laying. The events will be streamed live.
