Rose garden’s moving stories lovingly retold

Ensuring the Green Island Memorial Gardens are not forgotten is an important focus for a Kuri Bush woman. Gillian Vine reports.

The Green Island Memorial Gardens, opened in 1958, commemorate people from the then-borough who saw active service from the 1890s on.

Mostly it is those who saw action in the two world wars, although some served in the Malayan conflict, the Vietnam War and even the Boer War.

A standard rose and a small plaque in the gardens recognises each of those men and women.

For almost 60 years, who they were, details of their service and the names of "their" roses were largely unknown except by families. Then, in 2017, a comprehensive record was published in a book called Loving Memory, an appropriate choice, for as many will realise, Loving Memory is a hybrid tea rose with large crimson blooms and a light fragrance.

For her project, the author, who uses the nom de plume Travellers Lens, enlisted the help of the Returned and Services' Association, Taieri Mouth woman Irene Patterson and Otago Rose Society member and Green Island resident Wilma Graham.

Travellers Lens spent untold hours contacting the families of service people, while Ms Patterson researched family histories and Ms Graham painstakingly worked to identify as many of the roses as she could, which Travellers Lens photographed.

Ms Graham spent "many hours" checking the garden’s roses and identifying most of them.

Travellers Lens explained: "I was a newcomer to Green Island with a camera looking for a subject ... so I was very dependent [on] the local community’s input and since the subject turned out to be very personal to so many families, it wrote itself.

"First and foremost, the veterans wrote their stories and their descendants had varied responses: some cried, some hugged me till my bones were crushed [and they were] total strangers.

"Some I drank tea with while they entertained with wonderful memories, sometimes sad and sometimes heroic. I hope that explains how moving it was, how much it is a book authored by the Green Island community," she said.

Loving Memory is dedicated to Lawrence Melville (Rusty) Taylor, who died just before the book was published. A decorated New Zealand Army regular, who served in Malaya and Vietnam and rose to become Chief of General Staff, he was the youngest of six boys, three of whom served in World War 2. One of Rusty’s older brothers, RNZN cook Bruce Taylor, was killed at the age of 19, when HMS Stronghold was sunk in the Java Strait after the fall of Singapore. Tom and Ken returned safely. The four Taylor men’s plaques are together in the gardens.

Two Boer War veterans have plaques in the memorial garden.

The first, George Alfred Orange, whose rose is bright yellow Friesia, was a farrier from Southland who settled in Green Island after his marriage in 1906 and went on to serve as a borough councillor from 1935-39.

The second, Joseph John Woodford (The Fairy rose), was a member of the 1st New Zealand Mounted Rifles. Then, in 1915, he enlisted and was sent to Europe, where he died at the Somme.

Bannockburn-born John William Alexander Short (Loving Memory rose) also served in South Africa, in his case as a trooper in the British Army’s Royston Horse, fighting in the Natal rebellion of 1906.

These and other biographies in Loving Memory are interspersed with old photographs of Green Island and wartime events, while each biography has a photograph of the subject and his or her rose.

The book concludes with part of the World War 2 diary of Private John Landreth (Loving Memory rose), a moving account of his wartime experiences in North Africa. He was wounded but eventually returned to New Zealand, writing: "How wonderful to know the long and dangerous journey was over and I had come through not too badly, so many had not."

Originally, a limited number of copies of Loving Memory was printed and sold out, as did two reprints, and it was "by chance" that Hazel Mihaka, of Kuri Bush, was given a copy of the book two years ago.

"She [Travellers Lens] is an amazing lady but very private," Mrs Mihaka said.

Feeling that such an important piece of local history and the work that went into it should not be ignored, Mrs Mihaka contacted the author/photographer and reached an agreement to have more copies of Loving Memory printed on demand, in batches of 10 or more. Each book costs $58.

Concerned about the state of the memorial garden, marred by dead and dying roses, Mrs Mihaka then approached the Dunedin City Council to ask that the roses be assessed and, where necessary, replaced with new standard roses. She has met Lucy Summers, partnerships and engagements officer within the parks and recreation team. Mrs Mihaka is hopeful that this will lead to revamping the garden, hopefully using the same rose varieties as the originals.

Numerous roses used in the garden are still available, including Loving Memory, Margaret Merrill, The Fairy, Graham Thomas, Iceberg, Raspberry Ice, Claude Monet and Coventry Cathedral.

Keen to see the plaques cleaned so they can be read easily, Mrs Mihaka approached the council and was thrilled to be told last week Delta would do the work and planned to have it completed by Anzac Day.

"The Green Island Memorial Gardens are important and a reminder of the wartime service of so many men and women from the area, so I’m thrilled," she said.

The book

 - To obtain copies of Loving Memory, contact Hazel Mihaka, phone 027 581-1988.