Flying sheep on flying flags?

HBT15315403: The "what do you reckon?" New Zealand flag ideas of five years ago, and not a sheep in sight.

There has been some interesting chatter of late regarding a very traditional old thing.

Not the Queen, but something which is very much a part of the traditions of royalty and heritage and history and things like that.

Flags.

A few years back the Prime Minister of the day, John Key, spent an enormous amount of money on a referendum to choose a new flag, if the people indeed wanted a new flag.

Turned out they didn't ... so that was that.

It effectively reflected a widespread opinion along the lines of "just stick with the one we've got".

It's fine by me, except for the one factor which involves the art of confusion.

It looks a bit like the Aussie one.

Only a couple of stars separate them ... although our stars are red and theirs are white.

No real problem, because if some sporting event organiser mistakenly raises our one instead of the victorious Aussie team's one we'll take it.

Every country has a flag, and they raise that flag at times when flags have to be raised ... or the community folk simply get one and raise it from a pole attached to the garage anyway.

It's a pride thing.

"Fly the flag."

While comfortable with what we've got (because I'm not an overly devoted flag admirer), a couple of the design options which emerged at that time of "shall we change it?" were rather flash and imaginative.

There were, and rightly so, silver ferns involved in a couple and they looked fine.

Fine enough for a lot of people to head off and purchase them after the design made it to the production and retail stage.

The earliest memory I have of a flag is the piracy skull-and-crossbones one.

It was at primary school and some people (the big adult type) were putting on some sort of pirate show.

I was fascinated by the skull and crossbones and reckoned it was more fun than the weary old one at the top of the flagpole by the school office.

And I started seeing flags in the movies ... because the cavalry boys always had someone up the front bearing one, while the German forces in the war films carried them, although if we drew a picture of one of them at school there was always trouble on the cards.

Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.

The Americans, of course, are flag mad and they've got them everywhere, which I guess is just fine and dandy because it all boils down to pride in the land.

Which really strikes a fine note at big international games events when the flag representing the country of the winner takes the centre pole and while it is raised the anthem plays and everyone back home feels pretty good.

There have been a couple of occasions, of course, when the wrong flag or anthem is rolled out, which tends to create headlines back in the homeland of the bewildered soul standing on the top step of the rostrum.

Oh, and I remember another occasion, back in the school days when a couple of kids charged with raising it back up after a repair job (the edges had got a tad weary) sent it up the pole ... upside down.

The headmaster, who had served in the war, naturally went ballistic.

Never got that wrong again.

And so then, it has been fly the flag time in Napier recently with a new city flag being waved about, as it seems one is not allowed to fly a coat or arms.

This potential replacement has a dead yellow sheep strung down between what looks like a computer-generated picture of poppies ... although they are meant to be roses.

It is "heraldic" by all accounts, and reflects how Napier was once a centrepoint for a huge wool industry.

But that is no longer the case, and if you were to show that flag image to someone in New Plymouth they'd have no idea what city it represented.

I have an idea and it is free of charge.

The top half of it would be light blue and lower darker blue ... the pleasant sea and sky.

And central would be Pania ... a Napier and national icon of this region ... and flanking Pania would be two Norfolk Pines, for the seafront has been their home for 120 or so years and they are a part of this unique landscape.

Show that to anyone, anywhere, and they'll say "Napier".

And ain't that what it's all about?

Simple really ... and no sheep were harmed in its creation.

Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.