Australia’s Voices of Birallee choir has performed a specially written song to mark the centenary of Armistice Day in a small French village with a tragic past.
The song entitled 'And Now the War has Ended' is about a group of World War One diggers who started a performance troupe called The Smart Set.
"They were a bunch of guys who had some sort of incapacity or weren’t able to fight on the front line anymore," the lyricist Joshua Clifford told SBS News.
"Some were comedic writers, some were opera singers, instrumentalists, composers, and they all decided to get together and perform as a group, and try and lift the morale of the soldiers, get them to smile again, and forget about the tragedy they had to face the next day for a little moment."
The Smart Set would narrowly avoid tragedy themselves.
In the early hours of May 31, 1918, a barn they had performed in earlier that evening was struck by two German shells. There were 87 casualties, including 27 deaths.
Miraculously, none of the performers were killed and they would go on to entertain troops across the Western Front.
For several of the singers in the Voices of Birallee choir there is an added significance to the centenary performance. A number are descendants of those who served in the Great War.
“Many of us have shed a tear, when we walk through the memorials," said Sarah Morton. "The songs we sing, they’re quite evoking in terms of emotion.”
