IT was like a big thanks for turning out under such threatening skies.

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A shaft of sunshine suddenly pierced the gloom just as Simpson and his donkey went past the art gallery worksite.

Dean Street had shrugged off the rain, and the deluge dumped on the cusp of the dawn service a few hours earlier was almost forgotten. It even seemed to lift the spirits of the injured and exceptionally young Digger on the donkey, a slight smile appearing underneath the heavily bandaged head.

The large crowd — many veterans, without hesitation, said it was the biggest they’d seen — were then in for another bolt from the grey and that small patch of blue.

Roaring overhead came Alan Arthur in his World War II Kittyhawk fighter on the first of four runs down the main street barrel, before arcing off to the left or right.

Numbers were six deep, their clapping lifting and falling as veterans marched or were driven past. Then came the booming “whack-whack” of naval helicopters in formation.

A few minutes later came an individual flyover with a local touch, with John Murray from Albury’s Forest Air Helicopters at the controls.

If this was Melbourne you might have seen a line of police or security guards keeping watch on the barriers, their backs to the action.

Not in Dean Street on Saturday.

Red and white striped plastic tape was strung along, but no one seemed fussed if someone wanted to step out to snap Grandad’s photo.

The donkey was oblivious to it all anyway — as were the horses 30 metres behind that days earlier had been far less tolerant of their little mate.

The march was a pointer to how fast time goes by. Thirty years ago, for many a mere blink, it was the grey-haired World War II veterans who marched by in numbers.

Now it was the boys who went off to Vietnam, wearing the grey hair and slightly out-of-step gait of their fathers.

Ex-nasho Richard Harvey wanted to march, but then thought again. His doctor would throttle him if he tried, he said.

Last year he went in a Jeep, but on Saturday he instead settled into his mobility chair out the front of the Commercial Club. The Albury man did national service from 1956 in the navy, spending 154 days at the HMAS Penguin base in Sydney.

He said he loved the catch-ups with his fellow nashos, though with a smile offered up his thoughts on next year.

“I’ve had three strokes and so this might be the last one.”

At the end, as the marchers turned into Townsend Street, it all turned into an impromptu street carnival, minus the food stalls, as families and friends chatted and laughed in the big squeeze.