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COVID-19 has taken away our Daffodil Day Street Appeal.
The demand on our cancer services goes up during lockdown. And that's why we need you now more than ever. $24 helps to provide transport to and from cancer treatment.
Donate now to support the Cancer Society's vital services … View moreCOVID-19 has taken away our Daffodil Day Street Appeal.
The demand on our cancer services goes up during lockdown. And that's why we need you now more than ever. $24 helps to provide transport to and from cancer treatment.
Donate now to support the Cancer Society's vital services to support New Zealanders going through cancer.
We're in the last week of nominations for the 2022 Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year Awards. So come on, Hawkes Bay – who’s your New Zealander of the Year?
Tell us with a nomination! Nominations close 31 August.
Get in quick – www.nzawards.org.nz...
If you are missing your morning coffee, your cafe lunch or even your haircut - jump on www.sosbusiness.nz... and help a local small business out with cashflow - they get the money now and you get a voucher for later.
If you buy a $50 voucher, we will give you another $10 one (while stocks last).
… View moreIf you are missing your morning coffee, your cafe lunch or even your haircut - jump on www.sosbusiness.nz... and help a local small business out with cashflow - they get the money now and you get a voucher for later.
If you buy a $50 voucher, we will give you another $10 one (while stocks last).
SOS Business - A not-for-profit helping NZ small businesses during a tough time. All the money (less credit card fees) gets paid to the businesses.
The Hastings District Council has posted that local resident Pauly Douglas saw a seal this morning.
Sorry about the quality of the picture but what is the most unusual thing you have encountered during lockdown?
Here's a quick and simple knitting pattern to make ear savers. Instead of attaching the mask elastic to your ears, you hook onto the buttons. This saves rubbing on your ears but also tightens the mask onto your face, preventing slipping.
mariannaslazydaisydays.blogspot.com...
Dear neighbours,
We're all working from home during this lockdown, not just to bring you your favourite gardening mag, but also our Garden Diary 2022! This is where we need your help: Show us how you've been using your 2021 Diary -- take photos of the pages, tell us what was most … View moreDear neighbours,
We're all working from home during this lockdown, not just to bring you your favourite gardening mag, but also our Garden Diary 2022! This is where we need your help: Show us how you've been using your 2021 Diary -- take photos of the pages, tell us what was most useful, did you have enough space to write your notes, what have you scribbled on the pages? Did you clip your plant labels on them? Perhaps shoot a little video with your phone as you turn the pages. Your feedback will help us put together next year's diary.
Please email your comments and photos to mailbox@nzgardener.co.nz, by this Friday, Aug 27. The five most helpful readers will each receive a free copy of the 2022 diary.
We love seeing our apprentices making waves in the industry.
Wade Peek was recently named Plastics Apprentice of the Year, is definitely one to watch. With two qualifications under his belt, he’s been earmarked as a future plastics industry leader.
He hopes to one day start his own … View moreWe love seeing our apprentices making waves in the industry.
Wade Peek was recently named Plastics Apprentice of the Year, is definitely one to watch. With two qualifications under his belt, he’s been earmarked as a future plastics industry leader.
He hopes to one day start his own manufacturing business and says: "I really want to pass on what I have learnt to support apprentices in their training. I also want to be able to teach people outside of the plastics industry about what we do, as I truly believe we can't solve any of the really important environmental issues that surround plastic unless as many people as possible understand it."
If you are thinking of signing up for an apprenticeship, get in touch with us here
The NZ Remembrance Army team in the Hawke's Bay recently removed lichen from the headstone of a First World War Kiwi Airman, who was well know for the music shop he ran in Napier for over 6 decades.
Neville Forsyth Harston, was originally born in Paeroa, but moved to Napier with his parents … View moreThe NZ Remembrance Army team in the Hawke's Bay recently removed lichen from the headstone of a First World War Kiwi Airman, who was well know for the music shop he ran in Napier for over 6 decades.
Neville Forsyth Harston, was originally born in Paeroa, but moved to Napier with his parents when he was young. His father Harry Loveridge Harston was a musician from Newark in England, while his mother Catherine Marie Harston hailed from Liverpool
Neville was educated at Napier Boys High School, where he was serving with the Senior Cadets when the First World War broke out. It was the same school his older brother Ernest had attended before moving to study law at Auckland University.
Ernest had volunteered straight away and joined the Main Body of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in 1914. He saw service at Gallipoli as a Captain in the Wellington Infantry Regiment, for which he was awarded a mention in despatches.
Commanding the 7th (Wellington West Coast) Company of the 1st Wellington Battalion on the Somme in 1916, Ernest fell ill and was invalided out of the New Zealand Division. After recuperating, he returned to New Zealand and was attached to the Defence Headquarters in Wellington.
While his older brother was away, Neville had gained employment as a clerk with the South British Insurance Company, after graduating high school. He was also posted to the 9th (Hawke's Bay) Regiment of the New Zealand Army Reserve.
His older brother's stories of the War didn't put him off, and when he reached the age of 20 and met the enlistment requirements, Neville volunteered for service overseas in Europe.
He also volunteered for one of the most dangerous roles of the War; a pilot with the Royal Flying Corps. Enlisting in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in January 1918, he trained at the Sockburn Aerodrome established by Sir Henry Wigram.
Despite the dangerous nature of early aircraft, Neville was awarded his Royal Aero Club certificate and Canterbury Aviation Company pilot's brevet on 25 March 1918, in front of Colonel Chaffey and Sir Henry Wigram.
Flying the first plane built at the aerodrome, but with a new engine, Neville provided a display for the crowd, which including dropping potatoes from a height of 600 feet on to a target on the ground. He was commended for his accuracy.
Departing New Zealand on 2 May 1918 on HMT Balmoral Castle, as one of 30 cadets for the Royal Flying Corps, he arrived in London on 21 June and commenced further flying training.
It wasn't until 16 February 1919 that Neville was finally commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force, and so it is unlikely he saw combat during the War.
However, he did meet several notable individuals. Including the Duke of York, who would later be crowned King George VI and father of Queen Elizabeth II.
Leaving the RAF on 19 September 1919, Neville returned to Napier. But on rejoining the South British Insurance Company he was posted for a period to their Calcutta branch in India.
His older brother Ernest would also proceed overseas to become a member of the secretariat of the League of Nations. Settling in the United Kingdom, Ernest rose to become a partner in a law firm, a Borough Councillor, and Chairman of the British Empire Service League after he was knighted in 1958.
Returning to New Zealand in the early 1920s, Neville set up a music shop on Hastings Street in Napier. He also continued his military service as was one of the original founding members of the New Zealand Territorial Air Force on establishment in June 1923.
Known as quite the bachelor man about town, he frequently wore suits made in Saville Row. Living in an apartment above his shop, he had attended a 21st Birthday party on 2 February 1931, only to be woken at 10.47am the next morning when a massive earthquake caused his wardrobe to fall on to his bed.
The quake killed 256 people. The front of Neville's shop collapsed and then the entire building was then gutted by fire. Having lost everything he rebuilt from scratch in 1932, with a new facade in a Spanish mission style.
The shop was a popular location "where you could find that old piece of sheet music or gramophone record." There were also two small rooms where customers could sit and try out gramophone records before purchasing them.
Neville, also helped rebuild the Napier Aero Club, which had lost all its assets in the earthquake. He joined the executive of the Club and worked with many close friends to re-establish the embankment aerodrome. He was also assisting with the establishment of a new aerodrome at "the Beacons" in the late 1930s.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Neville re-enlisted and joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force as an airfield controller. It is likely this included at Wigram, near Christchurch. As during the expansion of the base there during the War, a road 'Harston Place' was named after him, and still bears his name.
After the War, Neville continued working in his music store in Napier until his death in 1986. Very little changed in the shop over that time, and despite recent alterations, it still serves as a music shop today.
A brave Kiwi, who volunteered for one of the most dangerous jobs of the First World War, evidence of Neville Harston's service and dedication to music remain visible and Napier and Christchurch to this day. Lest we forget.
References:
www.aucklandmuseum.com...
www.airforcemuseum.co.nz...
paperspast.natlib.govt.nz...
collection.mtghawkesbay.com...
christchurchartgallery.org.nz...
data.napier.govt.nz...
knowledgebank.org.nz...
fotoweb.airforcemuseum.co.nz...
nzetc.victoria.ac.nz...
teara.govt.nz...
christchurchcitylibraries.com...
www.nzdf.mil.nz...
Homophones can be confusing! But learning word meanings can help prevent spelling mistakes. What homophones can you think of?
This is a post from New Zealand Remembrance Army that is shared from Facebook.
An amazing story behind the grave recently cleaned by our team in Napier. Leonard Delabere Bestall was wounded serving as a medic during the First World War, and went on to provide critical welfare support to Kiwi … View moreThis is a post from New Zealand Remembrance Army that is shared from Facebook.
An amazing story behind the grave recently cleaned by our team in Napier. Leonard Delabere Bestall was wounded serving as a medic during the First World War, and went on to provide critical welfare support to Kiwi soldiers in Egypt during the Second World War.
The son of a Napier drapery shop owner, he trained as an architect in Christchurch where he served as a Territorial Force member of No.3 Field Ambulance Corps. When war broke out he enlisted in the 11th Reinforcements of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in December 1915.
Posted as a Private in the New Zealand Army Medical Corps, Leonard arrived in France in July 1916. He joined No.1 Field Ambulance Company, supporting the 1st (New Zealand) Infantry Brigade, with which he first saw action in the Battle of the Somme in September 1916.
Caring for battle casualties again at Messines in July and Passchendaele in early October 1917, Leonard was wounded in action on 22 October when he succumbed to the effects of a German gas shell.
After two months in hospital, and a one month with the Kiwi reinforcements group at Etaples, he rejoined his unit in January 1918. Part of the New Zealand Division's blunting of the enemy's advance during the German Spring Offensive in March, he fell seriously ill in May 1918.
Diagnosed with 'trench fever' he was evacuated to England, where he recovered at Broadhurst Hospital. Despite being discharged for duty a month later, he was classified as unfit for further service and so remained attached to the hospital staff for the rest of the War.
While in England Leonard met Frances Mary Ambler Widdowson of Lincolnshire. She followed him out to New Zealand after his return in April 1919. They were married in Napier in December 1920.
Returning to work in his father's drapery shop, he was also attracted to the arts and was a founder member of the Napier Society of Arts and Crafts. Leonard was also critical in helping raise funds to build the Hawkes Bay Art Gallery and Museum, despite the earthquake in 1931.
Awarded a Coronation Medal in 1937, he was touring the United States and Britain on a Carnegie fellowship when the War broke out in 1939. A dedicated Christian, Leonard volunteered for service with the Church Army in December 1941.
Enlisted in the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force as a Private, he was generally referred to as Mr Bestall, and was posted to the Kiwi base at Maadi Camp, near Cairo in May 1942.
Eventually appointed an Honorary Captain, "he was responsible for the morale, spiritual welfare and recreational needs of New Zealand soldiers" who rotated through Maadi.
Although well behind the lines, Leonard still had to endure the harsh desert environment and was admitted to hospital for a month in September 1942.
Awarded the Africa Star in 1943, he fell critically ill again in February 1944 and was admitted to hospital in Khartoum, Sudan. After recovering, Leonard spent six weeks working at the New Zealand base camp in Italy, before returning to Egypt.
He departed Suez in August 1944 and returned to New Zealand via Bombay, India. Discharged from the military in November he returned to the family business in Napier.
Continuing his leadership of the art gallery and museum, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the King's Birthday honours list in 1949, "for services in the fields of art and music."
Leonard was director of the gallery and museum when he passed away in 1959. He created an endowment fund and bequeathed a large sum to the museum. Bestall Street in Maraenui was named after him in the early 1960s.
The humble epitaph on his grave provides just a small hint of his wartime service, but little indication of the major contribution he made to community of Napier and the Hawke's Bay.
A brave man who endured significant deprivations on the battlegrounds of the Western Front, he followed this by making a enduring contribution to welfare of Kiwi soldiers a generation later. Lest we forget.
References:
www.aucklandmuseum.com...
teara.govt.nz...
collection.mtghawkesbay.com...
collection.mtghawkesbay.com...
Here is a weekend puzzle for those of you who enjoyed the last one. Answer to follow on Monday.
Kia ora Hawkes Bay neighbours!
We hope that you are safe and sound with your bubbles at home.
With two weeks to go until nominations close – it's time to lockdown your nomination for 2022 Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year. We're looking for that special person in this community – … View moreKia ora Hawkes Bay neighbours!
We hope that you are safe and sound with your bubbles at home.
With two weeks to go until nominations close – it's time to lockdown your nomination for 2022 Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year. We're looking for that special person in this community – the one doing exceptional mahi to make the Hawkes Bay a better place.
Nominations close 31 August and only take 5 minutes.
Get in quick – www.nzawards.co.nz...
Dear neighbours,
Every month, NZ Gardener runs a series of tested reader recipes using a seasonal crop. We are now on the hunt for rocket recipes, so send your best ones to mailbox@nzgardener.co.nz before Aug 31, 2021.
Every published recipe wins a copy of our special edition Homegrown Recipes.
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