Family try to squeeze fact from fiction

RECORD STRAIGHT: Merrilynn Bartram with some of her memorabilia honouring her grandfather, Sir Herbert Hart. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

The family of Masterton's most prominent World War I soldier, Brigadier-General Sir Herbert Hart, is wanting once and for all to put the record straight about which officer introduced the famous lemon squeezer hat to the New Zealand armed forces.

This has long been credited to Colonel William Malone who commanded the Wellington Infantry Battalion during the Gallipoli campaign and was killed in action during the Battle of Chunuk Bair.

The Malone claim has recently been repeated in a television programme that spoke of Malone introducing the lemon squeezer and giving it its famous shape by denting it above the brim.

Sir Herbert Hart's granddaughter, Merrilynn Bartram, of Masterton, has fond memories of her grandfather.

She said the truth was the lemon squeezer was a South African invention that Sir Herbert had introduced to the New Zealand military.

Sir Herbert survived the Boer War, the Gallipoli campaign and numerous other WWI engagements and his rifle brigade famously captured the French town of Le Quesnoy from German occupying forces.

He returned to live out his life at 24 Renall Street, Masterton, and is buried in Masterton Cemetery.

Mrs Bartram said she was told about the lemon squeezer as a young girl "virtually at my grandfather's knee" with it being one of just three war stories he was prepared to talk about, the others being Simpson's donkey and of how he was wounded.

The account of Sir Herbert's introduction of the lemon squeezer to New Zealand soldiers is backed up in correspondence between the Brigadier- General and old soldier Phil Bennett - who served in the Wellington regiment - and which was printed in a defence force magazine in 1957.

In this, Sir Herbert said he was responsible for the "adoption or introduction" of the lemon squeezer in WWI, having been a young soldier in the Boer War and noting how the uniform worn by the South African Constabulary (SAC), which included the lemon squeezer, was "quite the smartest uniform" he had ever seen.

Just before WWI, when he was a company commander in the newly formed Ruahine Regiment, matters of procedure, dress and badges had been discussed at a get-together of officers.

Other regiments had backgrounds and traditions going back to the Maori wars.

"We had nothing, and I said if we wished to be distinctive and smart-looking we should copy the hat worn by the SAC.

"The others had not seen the hat, so there and then I took one as issued and worn by the Territorials, straightened the brim, and gave the crown the familiar four dents.

"They were duly impressed by the appearance and it was decided to apply it for use by the regiment," Sir Herbert wrote.

When war broke out, Herbert Hart was in charge of the battalion until Colonel William Malone came on the scene and it was decided something had to be done about the uniformity of hats being worn.

"I was able to convince him that the peaked hat was the more distinctive and striking, and it was adopted," Sir Herbert wrote.

Mrs Bartram said it was her understanding Malone had been "resistant to taking the lemon squeezer on" and that the latest television programme that made it seem like it was all Malone's idea had "got the family going".

Sir Herbert Hart's outstanding service to the New Zealand military resulted in him being knighted by King George V, and the old soldier lived out a full and active life, dying in March 1968 and being given a full military funeral.