AWE UK Commission
for Anzac Day 2026

Alexander Aitken (1895 to 1967) was a gifted violinist, poet, writer and composer, as well as one of the most brilliant mathematical minds of his era.

Aitken’s memoir Gallipoli to the Somme. Recollections of a New Zealand Infantryman offers a deeply moving account of his wartime experience. During his voyage to Egypt in the First World War, he was given a violin, won by a fellow soldier in an onboard raffle and passed on to him. The instrument became his constant companion throughout Gallipoli and the Western Front. He played whenever circumstances allowed, offering music to his comrades, with Dvořák’s Humoresque and The First Noel at Christmas among their favourites.

Wounded at the Somme, Aitken returned to New Zealand believing the violin to be lost. Instead, it had remained with his Company, carefully looked after and returned to him by post eighteen months later.

After later donating the instrument to Otago Boys’ High School, the violin has remained there as a powerful reminder of the sacrifice of those who served in the First World War, and of the quiet gift one man gave his fellow soldiers through music in the darkest of times.