Display to honour Southland soldiers
The recent letter from Sir Don McKinnon, reminded me of a report (August 8) that Mayor Tim Shadbolt was ‘‘seeking $40,000 from the Southland Museum and Art Gallery Trust Board to set up window displays honouring Southland troops involved in the liberation of Le Quesnoy’’ in 1918.
He suggested that this would fund temporary displays to be set up in windows of empty shops as part of the centenary of this event.
The establishment of a World War I museum in the former mayor’s quarters in Le Quesnoy has the backing of Sir Don, a former deputy PM and minister of foreign affairs and former Commonwealth Secretary General, Sir, so it is understandable that our mayor would want to be involved in such an internationally prestigious undertaking.
I have been involved over many years, (since long before the current World War I commemorations), in researching and displaying in the school museum 234 biographies of Southland Boys’ High School fallen in both world wars.
Consequently I am very interested to see names and biographical details of those Southland boys who were involved in the 1918 deliverance of Le Quesnoy.
I have two requests of Mayor Shadbolt.
Please supply names of those Southland soldiers who would be commemorated in empty shop windows.
Please explain how the SMAG Trust Board could be expected to supply $40,000 to temporary displays.
Lynley Dear
Archivist, Southland Boys’ High School
Mayor Tim Shadbolt and Southland Museum and Art Gallery Trust Board Chair Toni Biddle replied:
We were thrilled to note Ms Dear’s interest in our plans to mark Armistice Day.
Southland Museum and Art Gallery staff, council staff, and volunteers are working together to provide a pop up exhibition which will honour local soldiers who lost their lives at Les Quesnoy, as well as Invercargill Borough Council staff who fought and died during World War I.
While some funding was initially sought, now that multiple organisations and volunteers have come together, it is anticipated the exhibition will cost about $5000.
Existing resources from the Southland Museum and Art Gallery such as content from the WWI exhibition will be utilised, as well as private research graciously provided by local historian and council staff member Wendy McArthur.
Here are the names of those we plan to remember in our exhibition:
Alexander James ‘‘Jimmy’’ Ridland
Peter Alphonsus Scully Patrick John Shepherd Henry Crawford Wilbert Watson Keiler Peter Kean
Charles Henry Jennings Clare
David Hay Frew Sutherland Sinclair McNeil Alleyne Gordon Webber Thomas Whitaker
John William Garmson They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them
Mahia release
Am I losing touch or is what I am reading in The Southland Times the new way?
A young man loses the plot and takes out his anger at whatever the situation was on his girlfriend.
Beats her to death, takes the rest of her life, her hopes and dreams away from her.
Turns her two small children into orphans. Their future will never be the same.
Now he is diagnosed with some life threatening medical condition and he has been allowed to leave prison and join his family. He thinks this is his right to be with his family at a time of need.
Did he offer the poor girl he beat to death the right to be with the ones she loved?
Honestly I do believe the judges need to spend a bit of time with the police and witness these so called ‘‘warriors’’ and the way they treat their partners and wives. I grew up in South Auckland and I was not impressed with this culture.
The Sensible Sentencing Trust is on the right track.
Our sentences need to be tougher and our prisons need to be places of punishment and a taste of no rights at all for the inmates. Our prison population would diminish quickly.
Ray Wilson
The purpose of jail
Garth McVicar says in regards to David Mahia: ‘‘He should be punished, end of story’’.
Criminals who are incarcerated are not there to be punished.
They are put there because they are unsafe to be free in society, as they don’t obey standard norms of behaviour, so they have to be held in a cage. They are not sent to jail to be tortured by the conditions of the prison nor by other inmates.
S MacDonald
Abridged – Editor