4.30am: Oatley is already awake. Families, some with young children in tow are making their way to Oatley Memorial Gardens. Chairs are being arranged in rows and the service clubs are setting up sausage sizzle stalls.
Ted Canute, 97, is asked if the rum was served to soldiers to give them courage before battle. ''No idea,'' he says ''but it certainly kept us alive in the Sinai Desert.''
As they do every year, Oatley, Mortdale and Penshurst RSL sub-branches have organised a combined Anzac commemoration, but being the centenary, this one is going to be extra big, with activities planned for the whole day.
5am: the RSL Club is open and past and present service people are trickling in for the traditional gunfire breakfast, coffee with a shot of rum.
Ted Canute, 97, is asked if the rum was served to soldiers to give them courage before battle.
''No idea,'' he says ''but it certainly kept us alive in the Sinai Desert.''
''A shot of rum to kept you going - it was so cold at night.''
Mr Canute refuses the gunfire breakfast because he has a speech to deliver at the Dawn Service and wants a clear head.
5.30am: There is standing room only at the Memorial Gardens and the Sing Australia Choir is stirring the pre dawn solemnity with Be Not Afraid For You'll Never Walk Alone. People just keep pouring into the park, creating a thick circle around the war memorial.
6am: The Dawn Service begins. Before Oatley RSL Vice President Bill Wright delivers the prologue he makes a comment on 'the magnificent and the amazing turnout''.
The beautiful music continues with the beautiful voice of soloist Bronte Horder leading the choir in Abide With Me.
Later Ted Canute delivers the tribute to the Unknown Soldier, part off which includes all wars Australians have been involved in.
''I fought in the frozen mud of the Somme...in a blazing destroyer exploding on the North Sea...I fought on the perimeter at Tobruk...crashed in the flaming wreckage of a fighter in New Guinea...lived with the damned in the place cursed with the name Changi ... Korea ... Vietnam ... The Gulf ... and the dust of Uruzgan.
''I was an army private ... a naval commander... an airforce bombardier. No man knows me ... no name marks my tomb, for I am every Australian serviceman ... I am the Unknown Soldier.''
Towards the end of the service MC Alf McGrath, referring to the size of the crowd, says it is obvious the Anzac spirit is well and truly alive.
''It is staggering that we have had so much support this morning,'' he says.
He also says that because of the size of the crowd there might not be enough breakfast at the club for everybody, so entry is limited to defence force members and special guests.
7am: There is a queue at the Lugarno Lions sausage stand.
Did you attend a Dawn Service today? Tell us what it means to you.
