Ted’s family to visit Crete grave
Another chapter will be added to the war story of Private Ted d’Auvergne when his two greatnieces travel to Crete, Greece, to honour him on Anzac Day.
Rosa Westgarth, of Timaru, and her Wanaka-based sister Jan Gibson say it is a trip they have been talking about for several years. Now they are finally doing it, leaving New Zealand next month, to visit the grave of d’Auvergne, whose legacy has been immortalised by a bottle of beer at the Waihao Forks Hotel, near Waimate.
D’Auvergne, is known for leaving a bottle of beer at the Waihao Forks Hotel 78 years ago, intending to open it upon his return from war.
However, Mr d’Auvergne, born in Rangiora as La Tour Mollet d’Auvergne in 1906, was killed in Crete on June 2, 1941, aged 35.
His story has become somewhat of a legend in New Zealand and has been the subject of an episode of TVNZ’s Epitaph, and was turned into a play Ted’s Bottle in 2010.
Westgarth and Gibson’s father, John Richards, was the nephew of d’Augvergne.
The pair feel the time is now right to visit the grave of their great uncle and to visit the family of the man who rescued d’Augvergne after he was wounded, looking after him until he died.
It will be only the second time family has visited the grave, Gibson said.
‘‘Last year four friends were going over to Crete and said we should go with them.’’
However, their mother was still alive at the time and neither sister felt right going without the other, or leaving their mother.
‘‘She passed away last year and we thought the time was right,’’ Westgarth said.
She said growing up their great uncle was talked about but not so much his war story.
‘‘In those days, when we were kids, you didn’t really talk about the war,’’ Gibson said.
As the sisters grew older and learnt more about their great uncle, they also learnt he was a clever man and would give anything a go.
‘‘He was 35 when he went to war and a real handyman,’’ Westgarth said.
‘‘That’s come through the generations and he looked so much like our uncle Roger.’’
Gibson said the women will be in Crete for 12 days, so they can find the family of Yakovos Kalionzakis who found d’Auvergne with a bullet wound to the chest.
A letter to d’Auvergne’s parents, from Kalionzakis, says that he found their son and took him to his house to care for him.
‘‘... after a little time he died. In his last time he wrote a letter and he told me to ‘please send it to my parents’,’’ the letter said.
The letter was delayed as Kalionzakis became a prisoner of the Germans and in the meantime they destroyed the letter.
D’Auvergne was buried by Kalionzakis with other English soliders and later moved to the Suda Bay cemetery in Crete, along with the thousands of other British and Commonwealth servicemen who lost their lives.
The sisters intend on taking stones, that Gibson has collected from Waihao Downs, to place on d’Auvergne’s grave.
‘‘It’s an adventure,’’ Westgarth said.
‘‘It will be sad but a nice way of remembering him too.’’