Auckland air cadet Nicholas Blanks wears his great-grandfather's World War I medals, entrusted to him after being returned from Australia. Photo / Alex Burton
A set of long-lost World War I medals will once again be worn at the Anzac Day dawn service in Auckland today, for the first time in more than 40 years.
A Gallipoli veteran who led an all-Kiwi bugle team in London at the first Anzac Day Commemoration in 1916 will be honoured by his great-grandson at the Auckland Cenotaph today.
A member of the Auckland Mounted Rifles, Alfred Blanks fought in the Battle of Chunuk Bair, where his regiment suffered heavy losses.
Rising to the rank of corporal, he later served in France and was discharged in September 1918 after being shot in the shoulder.
Now, 44 years after his death at the age of 93, Alfred’s lost World War I medals have been returned to New Zealand and entrusted to his 15-year-old great-grandson, Nicholas Blanks.
A member of the Air Cadets, Nicholas planned to attend the Anzac Day dawn service at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, proudly wearing Alfred’s medals for the first time. He will then join his squadron’s Guard of Honour at the Mt Albert War Memorial Hall.
“Normally, we’re representing the force, the country, and the people,” he says. “When you have the medals, you’re also representing your family and those who served, so that adds a different weight to it.”
Keen on history, Nicholas has spent the past few years researching his great-grandfather’s service record, piecing together his movements from the New Zealand training camp in Egypt, to Turkey, and then on to France.
His father, Scott Blanks – New Zealand’s “godfather of comedy” and Alfred’s youngest grandson – had always thought the medals were donated to the Defence Force.
However, when he and Nicholas searched for them at the Waiōuru Army Museum and in Auckland Museum’s medal collection, they were nowhere to be found.
Then late last year, one of Scott’s cousins, who was visiting family in Australia, stumbled across a box full of “musing and medals” in the shed.
Among the memorabilia inside were Alfred’s 1914-1915 British Star, British War Medal, and Victory Medal, as well as a miniature Gallipoli Medallion, his dog tags, and the emblem from his hat.
Found in relatively poor condition, they have now been restored and mounted by specialist Aubrey Bairstow at New Zealand Medals.
Information engraved on the rim, including Alfred’s 13/12 service number, shows he enlisted with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force on the first day.
“There would have been hundreds of men there, lined up roughly in alphabetical order,” says Scott. “Because he was B for Blanks, he got 13 – the lowest number Aubrey has ever seen.”
Scott has a medal of his own, framed and on display in his Auckland home – but not for military prowess. The owner and co-founder of The Classic, Auckland’s iconic comedy club on Queen Street, he was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to comedy in 2018.
He had a close relationship with his grandfather, especially after the death of his own father, Keith – the youngest of Alfred’s three sons – when he was only 12.
Some of his fondest memories are of holding Alfred’s hand and marching with him at Anzac Day dawn parades.
“As a kid, I would sneak into his bedroom and open up the wardrobe door,” Scott recalls. “Sitting on the top shelf was his lemon squeezer hat with a bugle next to it. But he never talked about the war. And he never played the bugle for us.”
Alfred’s sheet music was also returned to New Zealand, with his medals. In 1916, he led a bugle squad of eight New Zealand soldiers who sounded the Last Post at the first commemorative Anzac Day service, held in London at Westminster Abbey and attended by King George V and Queen Mary.
According to a story published in the New Zealand Herald in the late 1950s, the crowds “went wild with excitement” as thousands of New Zealand and Australian soldiers marched through the streets, deluging them with flowers.
After the war, Alfred returned to Auckland, where he worked repairing sewing machines. Scott reckons there was nothing he couldn’t fix.
When he died, the medals ended up with his eldest son, Harvey, in Australia. They were then passed down to his eldest grandson, Robert, who was happy to return them home.
The discovery of the medals after so many years has sparked an emotional sharing of memories within the family.
Scott’s cousin, Annabel, remembers Alfred talking about the close bonds his Auckland Mounted Rifles regiment formed with their horses in Egypt while training in the desert.
“Riding back to where they were camped, they were exhausted and he could put his head down on the horse’s neck to sleep, trusting her to keep going, returning him to safety,” she wrote in an email to Scott that brought him to tears. “He felt he owed his life to his horse.”
Later, in France, Alfred was given charge of a team of mules that dragged cannon wagons through the rain and mud. Compared to horses, he said, mules were “the most difficult creatures that ever drew breath”.
Both Scott’s father, Keith, and his uncle Trevor served in World War II, although Keith, who enlisted at 18, was still training in Edinburgh when peace was declared.
All three brothers attended Mt Albert Grammar, where Nicholas is now in Year 11.
At the school’s Anzac Service Assembly on April 10, he had his photo taken with World War II veteran, historian, and MAGS old boy Professor Russell Stone, who has just celebrated his 102nd birthday.
Alfred’s official war record has now been updated at the Online Cenotaph, which includes a story about the return of his medals.
Scott, who was in his early 20s when his grandfather died, has kept his pipe and smoking stand as mementoes. A packet of tobacco still rests on top of it.
“That’s my memory of him,” he says. “Sitting in his chair, quietly smoking on his pipe.”
Joanna Wane is an award-winning senior lifestyle writer with a special interest in social issues and the arts.
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