Le Quesnoy a ‘special place’ to visit and remember

I APPRECIATE seeing the ODT articles on the liberation of Le Quesnoy.

My husband and I visited Le Quesnoy in early March 2010.

I was armed with my notebook with cutouts from my aunt about my grandfather Sergeant John (Jack) Williams’ (Invercargill) visit there, with 50 other New Zealanders representing the ‘‘Dinks’’ — the New Zealand Rifle Brigade, who liberated Le Quesnoy on November 4, 1918.

Le Quesnoy is off the beaten track and we had to hire a car in Lille to drive there.

We arrived at noon to find everything shut. So, as Sir Don McKinnon said in his article (ODT, 30.10.18), we did ‘‘sit on the grass (bench seat) and think about what those people (my grandfather and those with him) did almost 100 years ago’’.

It was a lovely spring day and armed with my notebook and a French translation a friend had written, we explored the town. Everyone was friendly, but noone spoke English. We met some workmen just finishing their lunch and by telling them my grandpere had been there and gesturing about climbing the wall they gleamed enough to show us the spot where this had taken place.

Le Quesnoy is strongly connected to New Zealand and the sister town of Cambridge in the North Island. But it also has a strong connection for many of my family and I am sure others who have had relatives serving with the NZ Rifle Brigade. As I was standing on the corner taking a picture of the street where my grandfather was billeted in 1968 (Rue Nouvelle Zelande with second sign underneath Rue Aotearoa terre du long nuage blanc), I got a warm wave from the residents of the house I was standing beside.

Just before we left, I took a picture of the spot in the town square where I believed the New Zealand troops were photographed while on parade the day after they had liberated this very old walled town 1918. A very special place to visit.

Deborah Taylor

Helensburgh

[Abridged]

Car parking

MOST people didn’t vote for mayor and council to reduce car parks each year.

This impractical thinking just makes it harder for people to go about their business. Those in privileged positions of power — the mayor, councillors and others — will have no problems parking and paying $18 a day.

His idea of reducing car parks because of the benefits to public health and local businesses such a move away from cars would deliver, is overstated.

Is he suggesting we all go biking? Because if he is, when it comes to benefits to public health, I would predict an increase in injury and death on the shambles that is the cycleway. B.J. McLachlan

Company Bay ...................................

BIBLE READING: And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? — Romans 10:14.