They shared a mobile phone to listen to the Ode Of Remembrance from the Australian War Memorial in Canberra - "they shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old" - then it was muted and they paused, silhouetted in semi-darkness, waiting. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video There are few sounds more moving than the The Last Post and, just on 6am, it sounded out proudly from the balcony of the Royal - a pub operating for more than 130 years that had to stop serving customers last month because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Down an adjoining street in Leichhardt, in Sydney's inner west, there was a line of candles as locals commemorated the nation's most sacred day with a driveway dawn service. Disrupted for the first time since the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1919, it seemed like it would be the loneliest Anzac Day.

A day of with no mass gatherings for dawn services, no breakfasts catching up with other veterans and current service men and women, no marches with bands and banners and clapping spectators, no handshakes or hugs outside families, no emotional service from Gallipoli to watch, no retiring to the pub to tell stories and play two-up. Streets that would have been teeming with military uniforms in other years were largely empty. Cenotaphs and memorials had far fewer wreaths than usual. But - deep in a global crisis that has been likened to a war, just with health workers on the frontline this time - Australians found ways to make Anzac Day more communal and less lonely. Images of the RSL-inspired driveway and balcony dawn services flooded social media. There was a veteran saluting in uniform, with "Lest We Forget" chalked on the roadside. A toddler in pyjamas and bunny slippers with a candle. A TV out the front of a house to show commemorations elsewhere for the whole neighbourhood.

Paying tribute at the Anzac Day dawn service outside the Royal Hotel in Leichhardt. Credit:Kate Geraghty There was a digger's silhouette projected on the front of a house. Tributes on Zoom that united families from different parts of the world. And while there were many photos featuring neatly pressed uniforms and polished medals, there were less formal tributes in just-out-of-bed shorts, thongs and daggy T-shirts. As well as bugles and trumpets, social media revealed The Last Post was also played this unusual Anzac Day on clarinets, saxophones and bagpipes. Versions drifted across suburbs and farms, linking neighbours at a time when physical distancing restrictions are keeping everyone apart. There were warm online tributes to relatives who had served. Candles raised instead of glasses. Home-made wreaths and paper poppies.

If isolating at home had any positives this week, it would be the number of children who made tributes and the likely record national output of Anzac biscuits. Loading The day's commemorations began in darkness at the Australian War Memorial with a haunting didgeridoo solo from Seaman Lynton Robbins, a Kamilaroi man from the Navy. After weeks of virus briefings, Prime Minister Scott Morrison gave an eloquent speech that described the day's remembrances as "small, quiet and homely" and mentioned an Army corporal in isolation during chemotherapy for brain cancer. "He has served us but now we must do the right thing by him and so many more because we're all in this together," he said. "But we always have been. We always will be."

On an historic Anzac Day in so many ways, there was a first joint video message from Governor-General David Hurley and his New Zealand counterpart, Dame Patsy Reddy, that encouraged the community to reach out to "the vulnerable and anxious" during the coronavirus crisis. Loading It was a reminder that veterans who might want company on a day of deep emotions were isolated at home. A day so different proved to be so familiar in sentiment. As Reveille vibrated across the inner west at the Royal's dawn service, half a dozen pigeons took off from the roof then circled back to land.