The Star: March 07, 2024

The Star Thursday March 7 2024
10
NEWS
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
‘This memorial will consolidate everything’
• From page 9
He is now looking forward to a
third option on April 25.
“Kirwee? Yes, indeed. That’ll be
very good when it’s opened.”
The Selwyn District has several
prominent public-facing war
memorials at locations including
Leeston, Springston, Tai Tapu
and Darfield.
West Melton was the latest
addition when a memorial on the
school grounds was unveiled in
2014.
So why had Kirwee been overlooked?
“It was a pretty small place until
recently, Kirwee. It’s a decent
size now and it wasn’t always that
way,” Paul Jarman thought.
Kirwee covers only 3.62 sq km
and the settlement was home to
603 people in 2006, according to
Statistics New Zealand.
The latest population estimate
was 966 in 2018.
Kirwee Community Committee
member and memorial
project co-ordinator David Stott
offered another explanation: “No
one sort of asked for it before.”
Stott has accumulated 123
names of Kirwee men who
fought in both world wars, from
rolls of honour in the Kirwee
Community Hall, St George’s
Anglican Church, Kirwee School
and a hall at Halkett, about 12km
east on the outskirts of West
Melton.
SITE: Kirwee’s war
memorial is planned for
this location on Anzac Lane
in the reserve. Below – an
architect’s impression.
“Some names are on more than
one, some aren’t. This memorial
will consolidate everything in a
public place,” he said.
Committee chair Stu Begg
said the memorial would finally
allow residents to attend their
own Anzac Day commemoration
rather than troop to Darfield, a
seven-minute drive away.
“Everyone else seems to have
their own services like Sheffield
and Springfield. West Melton has
one down at the school,” Begg
said.
“The only recognition we have
is some honours boards in our
local community hall but it’s not
open to the public all the time, no
one can just wander in there.”
The committee made a presentation
to the Malvern Community
Board last week in an
attempt to secure funding for a
project floated four years ago.
They have about $10,000
thanks to donors and a charity
bowls tournament. A pub quiz
and garage sale is also planned.
When Kirwee’s memorial is
set in stone and unveiled, it will
be a sombre occasion for Paul
Jarman, a cause for reflection, not
celebration.
He retrieves a bottle of Moët &
Chandon Brut Imperial Champagne
from a locked cabinet in
the lounge, which will remain
unopened for evermore.
Thought to have been gifted
to Lottie by Mr Knight from
Racecourse Hill – considered
one of the few gentlemen with
the means to import champagne
in those days – it was meant to
be uncorked to mark the end of
hostilities.
The gesture fell rather flat when
Bert wrote to his mother Annie
from Port Suez on December 10,
1918, a month after the Armistice.
“Mum, I don’t want a lot of
fuss made when I land home, no
parties or anything like that. If
there’s any public welcome home
or anything like that I won’t be
there.
“If poor old Ness could have
been there to share the joy it
might have been different, so
please do nothing.
“I know it will be mighty hard
knowing our dear old Frank and
Ness will never come back again
so make it as easy as possible.
“Today I picked up an Otago
Witness in a tent and whose
photo should be there but the
poor kids. It was a lovely photo
but the words killed in action
were cruel.”
During peacetime the Moët
has lost its effervescence. It is
undrinkable, in more ways than
one.
SOBERING: This bottle
of Moët & Chandon was
meant to be opened at the
end of World War 1, but the
only one of three brothers
in arms who returned home
insisted there was nothing
to celebrate.
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