Chris Geddis: Roll of Honour and eternal flame must be restored

The revamped Napier Conference Centre.

New Zealand's World War I memorials are part of the fabric of our lives.

Virtually every township up and down New Zealand has one, usually in the main street, there are well over 500 public memorials to the soldiers of the Great War, 1914-1918 who never returned.

The design of and details on memorials were the result of considerable debate and thought. Memorials aroused deep emotions and had to be acceptable to a wide cross section of people.

They hold the clue to what that terrible event meant to the people of this country. Unlike Australia and Britain, New Zealand did not use memorials as an opportunity to provide social amenities, although Hastings built a Soldiers Memorial Hospital, now renamed the Hawke's Bay Fallen Soldiers Memorial Hospital.

New Zealanders felt that useful memorials would detract from the idealistic purpose and be out of keeping with the self-sacrificing spirit of war service. This was in striking contrast with the attitude after World War II, when central government provided subsidies for memorials "on the condition that they were useful community assets such as halls or marae".

Napier took this on board, and so it was that the original Napier War Memorial Hall was built by public subscription in 1956 in memory of those that lost their lives in World War II 1939-1945, and opened on July 14, 1957.

The stylish and innovative, architecturally designed by Guy Natusch, building incorporated a conference hall, a restaurant and downstairs, an aquarium, along with an outside memorial bay displaying a roll of honour recording the names of 300 former residents of Napier Borough who had died during World War II.

The memorial featured a cauldron with an eternal flame standing in a fish pond. In 1995 the hall was renovated and rededicated on September 30 1995 as Napier War Memorial Conference Centre.

A new World War I roll of honour was added (Napier's original roll of honour having been destroyed during the 1931 earthquake) and a number of names were added to the World War II roll of honour to cover the wider Napier City area including Bay View, Meeanee and Taradale. Plaques were also added to acknowledge sacrifices in post-World War II conflicts. It was then incorporated into a foyer.

The eternal flame (extinguished years previously) was relit by the oldest World War I veteran and former Mayor Ron Spriggs.

So why has the Napier City Council in its 2017 revamp, dropped "War and Memorial" out of the facility name and why has the Roll of Honour and eternal flame not been reinstalled? One would hope that the council has not gone "politically correct" and is trying to eliminate the word "War" out of our collective consciences.

As Guy Natusch concluded in his "Talking Point" (HB Today April 21 2017) "The memorial should be returned - that is its place. It can be done."

If this is not achieved, if there has to be a compromise, and let us hope it doesn't come to that, I suggest that maybe the Napier City Council, which is now mooting a new library in Memorial Square, could incorporate the Napier War Memorial "Women's Rest" and community centre into the library.

This facility has been long closed as it is an earthquake risk. This facility has a foundation stone stating "Erected by the people of Napier in commemoration of citizens of this town who fell in the Great War 1914-1918."

It was destroyed in 1931 and rebuilt in 1934. The existing Cenotaph could be retained and the new "Napier Memorial Library" could feature the Roll of Honour and eternal flame as part of its design, completing the significance of Memorial Square.

Chris Geddis is a former company accountant for the Daily Telegraph newspaper in Napier and a local historian.