By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
IN THE pre-dawn gloom George Nicholson stood to the side of the Narre Warren cenotaph and shook the hand of each person who walked by to pay their respects.
The secretary of the Berwick RSL was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2013 but that would never stop him attending Saturday’s dawn service outside the Casey Council chambers.
Wearing a suit adorned with his grandfather’s war medals, George thanked as many people as he could as the crowd filed passed the cenotaph following the service.
At the annual breakfast later that morning, organised voluntarily by the Narre Warren Rotary Club at the nearby Casey Civic Centre, George said nothing – not even cancer – would hinder him emceeing on Saturday, at the dawn service and at the service in Berwick later that day.
“I can assure you it’s not. I’ve been very worried about today yet very determined I was going to get through this. The boys have been really supportive,” George said, speaking of his RSL colleagues.
“It’s meant a lot to me to be able to do today – they were worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle it.
“I wouldn’t blame them, but I was determined. We had a Plan B but we didn’t need it, we won’t need it for 11 o’clock today either.”
George joined the Berwick RSL in 2006 after moving to the area from Drouin.
His grandfather William ‘Bill’ Francis Melbourne landed on Gallipoli in August 1915 and fought at Lone Pine, and George had sought the RSL’s help with researching his history.
“I put my head in the RSL door one day to ask them if they could help me find my grandfather’s details,” he said.
“Within six months I was secretary of the RSL and I have been since.”
George said he still recalled to this day the moments when his grandfather reflected on his war service.
“I remember as a little kid when the Anzac march was on, him sitting in front of the radio and bawling his eyes out,” he said.
“It brings tears to my eyes.”
