POPPY PLAN
Poppies to adorn six more street signs
Red poppies will adorn another six Palmerston North street signs in commemoration of the Victoria Cross recipients they were named for.
For the past two years, the Poppy Places Trust has worked with the Palmerston North City Council to identify and mark streets and sites with links to New Zealand’s military history. So far, 15 streets, with names connected to the Maori Battalion of World War I, have been marked.
The next six streets to bear a poppy, all situated near Rangiora Ave, were developed immediately after WWII, and are named after Kiwi Victoria Cross recipients Charles Upham, Moana-nuia-kiwa Ng’arimu, Alfred Clive Hulme, John Daniel Hinton, Leslie Wilton Andrew and Keith Elliott.
The announcement was made by the trust at its Armistice Day commemorations in the Palmerston North Conference and Function Centre on Saturday.
The family of two of those soldiers, who had strong ties to Manawatu¯ , attended the event.
The Ashhurst-born Leslie Andrew lent his name to Andrew Ave. He was awarded the Victoria Cross at 20 years old in 1917 for charging down two machine gunnests at Passchendaele, the bloodiest battle in New Zealand’s history.
His granddaughter, Donna Matthews, said she thought marking the street signs with poppies was a great idea.
‘‘I think it’s important to remember where these names come from and the sacrifices those generations made for us,’’ she said.
Elliot St is named for Keith Elliot, who grew up in A¯ piti and went to Feilding Agricultural High School. He earned his Victoria Cross during the First Battle of Alamein in Egypt in 1942.
His son, Doug Elliott thought the trust was a fantastic initiative, and said it was a great to see so many people gathered for the launch. But, he said his father would have been uncomfortable with the idea.
‘‘He wasn’t one to put himself out there. He’d have rather kept it low-key and not had all the fuss and bother.
‘‘He never understood why he was singled out, when the others were just as brave.’’