FROM THE DESK

I can never forget the last time I met 100-year-old Albert Asher. There he was sitting on his couch in his best suit and wearing his war medals. The Western Leader was doing a special edition on Anzac Day and we were interviewing him as one of the last surviving war veterans. Asher told me he wasn’t impressed I had missed his last birthday. And I told him I would come next time. ‘‘If there is another one,’’ he said. On May 23 I attended his funeral at the Titirangi RSA. The flag flew at half mast. Inside his coffin was adorned with the New Zealand flag and his medals sat atop. On an easel behind there was a picture of his wife Elizabeth, who died 24 years ago. For a moment it felt like he would just walk through the doors and say ‘hang on a minute who put her picture there?’’. Then he would look at me and say ‘you again!’’. Asher was a great guy, the son of the first Maori All Black, but his best quality was his humility. Good bye Albert, lest we forget.

- Mahvash, reporter