a large, diverse crowd, with medal-bearing veterans alongside families and children. French soldiers stood on the steps, the Irish consul-general was with the officials. As the clock approached 11am, the path cleared for Bill Mackay, a living treasure of the Pittwater RSL, and his walking frame.

Marty Morrison, 90, was there to mark the end of the war, having been a peace activist, she said, “since I was 13 years old”.

Born in America, Morrison lived through the second world war, married an Australian diplomat in 1958, and joined the Marrickville Peace Group.

“I became a peace activist when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor,” she said. “I was in California. All of the Japanese were sent to the desert and they stayed there for the rest of the war.

“I was afirst in my family to visit his grave in northern France. Most of us didn’t know where it was.”

As it neared the 11th hour, the governor of NSW, David Hurley, laid the first wreath. The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, laid the second. The Last Post played at 10.59. Three jets flew overhead. Then Reveille. After the dignitaries dispersed and the ceremonies were over, people began laying their own personal tributes.