Veterans won’t go hungry in Stratford on Anzac Day
A Taranaki family with a long history of military service has started a new Anzac Day tradition in Stratford – putting on a cooked breakfast for veterans.
Jack and Sarah Hywood, who own Mountain Motors, will fill their large workshop with tables and chairs so veterans and their families can get together over a meal after the dawn parade.
The town’s RSA, which closed in 2015, used to put on breakfast after the dawn service, Sarah said.
With three veterans in her immediate family, they had always attended Anzac Day services, she said.
“We always like to go for breakfast after the parade so we thought, why don’t we do it ourselves, because there’s nothing else available,” she said.
Last year, the couple had put on a free breakfast as a trial run, and found it was very popular.
Veterans and their families from around Taranaki are invited to the breakfast, she said. “It’s a chance for people that are new to the area, who want to get to know other veterans or could do with some support, regardless of which era they served in.”
Sarah and her brother Andrew both followed in their father Terry O’kane’s footsteps and served in the military.
Terry, who is looking forward to hearing and telling a few “sandbag and steel helmet stories” on Thursday, said the family had many veterans going back generations.
“My grandfather, my father and myself and my two children, and a few extras on either side of the family, have all served.”
“I marched in when I was 18, I went overseas at 19 to Malaya, and when I was 20, I went to Vietnam. I was wounded on August the 2nd, 1969, and medivaced back home.
“Later, I served time with the Territorial battalions in Auckland and Taranaki.”
His son Andrew, who now lives in Australia, served in Timor during his 12 years with the regular forces, and then spent five years with a private military contractor in Afghanistan.”
Sarah joined the regular forces and was based in the signal corps at Linton and Hobsonville, until she started her family.
“I was fortunate not to see active service, I fell in between Bosnia and Timor,” she said.
Jack Hywood said there would be plenty of time at the breakfast for people to reminisce and remember old friends.
The couple are thrilled with the support they have recovered from other businesses, he said.
The food is being cooked by caterers Mark and Sarah Skilling, aka The Farmers Grill, who will have their large kitchen trailer set up in the workshop.
The Skillings were donating their time and some of the food they would cook on the day.
The initiative is also being supported by Stratford New World, the Central Butchery and Toops.
It’s not the first time Mountain Motors, which the Hywoods bought three years ago, has hosted a large gathering.
The business has been trading under that name for more than 70 years, after many years as Kleeman and Bishop.
It was very likely staff would have left from there to go to the two world wars, Sarah said. And in 1953, it was the only place in town large enough to host a celebratory lunch for 600 school children to mark the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, according to the Stratford District library website, which has a photograph of the occasion.