Veteran singers from Canberra's Australian Rugby Choir say the weather for the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Australian War Memorial was the worst they could remember in almost a decade.
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''I've been participating for the last eight years and this is the wettest one I can remember,'' choir leader Neil Fleming said.
While it is not unusual for Anzac Day ceremonies, particularly the dawn service, to be cold and wet, the weather is usually benign by the time November rolls around. Mr Fleming said even though many of the choir's 85 members are elderly, with one in his mid-80s, nobody had called in to cancel because of the weather. ''There are 40 of us here today and that's what we expected.''
A long-standing AWM volunteer said the last time it had rained on Remembrance Day was in the early 2000s, possibly about 2004, when John Howard was prime minister.
Senator Michael Ronaldson, representing Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and former prime minister Paul Keating chose discretion over valour when the heavens opened and the rain started coming in sideways.
Mr Abbott did not attend, observing the day at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance, while Mr Keating delivered the commemorative address in Canberra. The Rugby Choir, a fixture at Anzac and Remembrance Day ceremonies for many years, is not made up of retired footballers. Mr Fleming, for example, is a retired school teacher. ''My mum, who is quite elderly, is in a nursing home. We were visiting her one day when the choir sang there. My wife suggested it was something I could join. Ever since she has been complaining that she has become a choir widow.''
While the choir members have nothing against women per se, their reason for being limits potential membership to just 50 per cent of the population. ''We are a non-auditioning, four-part harmony male choir,'' Mr Fleming said. Asked if literally anybody could join, regardless of their talent or ability, he said that was the case. ''You probably wouldn't want to hear some of these fellows singing on their own,'' he said.
The rewards for being prepared to stand around in the cold and the wet are significant, but not in a monetary sense. Members enjoy being a part of the city's cultural diversity and participating in major events.
Preparation for events such as Remembrance and Anzac days is minimal. ''We sing the national anthem and a hymn,'' Mr Fleming said. ''We know the words pretty well.'' Monday's hymn, O God, Our Help In Ages Past, ran for three verses while the national anthem ended after just 10 lines. ''We're pretty good with the first verse [of the anthem], not so good with the second,'' he said. And the third? ''There's a third verse?'' he quipped.
While Monday's rain proved challenging for the crowd of fewer than 2000, it is not the most inclement Remembrance Day in recent memory. That was in 1987, when the ceremony had to be moved indoors.
