Lest We Forget

100 years ago on 12 October 1917 my grandfather’s brother, Sam, died in the mud at Passchendaele. 

He and my Grandfather Harry Townsend ran a butchers shop at Church Corner here in Christchurch. Sam enlisted with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.

Three days before he died in Belgium he wrote his last letter to his nephew, also called Sam.  This is what he wrote:

“9 October 1917

My Dear Sam

I was very pleased to receive your most interesting letter and to hear you had seen the battle pictures and tanks. You ask me if I have seen them. Yes I have been in action with them twice but they are too slow for us we usually have them far behind. We have just been in a big push and you will see by the papers captured a lot of prisoners, but there were a lot more killed than captured. They surrender at the first chance, and a more miserable lot you never saw, a lot of them are mere boys from about fifteen to eighteen and seemed very pleased to get out of it. The ground we advanced over was a horrible sight being covered with dead and nothing but deep shell holes from our guns. We have been relieved for a few days. But we are into it again shortly. It is a great pity that the weather has broken as it may stop the advance and is not too comfortable laying in shell holes when you are wet through. Myself and two more fellows were in a shell hole for three days and nights and during the day time we could not show a finger. That is the time when hours a like days. I haven’t seen Addie’s brother “Frank” yet, but I saw her brother Bill the other day for a few minutes. I could not say much to him, we being on the march, but I expect to see him again shortly. Tell Dad I have not seen Stringleman since the beginning of last August and have not seen Wilson or Newman at all. I often see Bruce Harris, he being attached to my Battalion now. Do you remember him? He used to be postman at Riccarton. Bob Raxworthy is wounded and the two eldest boys killed. I haven’t heard how the others got on in this last stint. I shall have to close now, dinner being about ready, and if a man doesn’t get in early he misses his whack. Love to all.

Your affectionate Uncle Sam”

Lest We Forget

Peter Townsend 

Christchurch – will be a city of choice

As the rebuild takes effect, Christchurch has a golden opportunity to become New Zealand’s number one city of choice, says outgoing Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce chief executive Peter Townsend.

Townsend says Christchurch is back and running after 11,000 aftershocks, 53 of them over five on the Richter scale.

Currently $83 million is being spent in rebuilding the city every week, and by the end of this calendar year 75 per cent of the housing stock will have been repaired and rebuilt. A total of 70 percent of the commercial building repairs and rebuilds will also have been completed, he says.

The cost of the Structural side of the rebuild so far is $33 billion. But there is still a massive amount to do. The total cost of the whole rebuild is still estimated at somewhere between $40 and $50 billion.

EQC insurance proceeds have accounted for around $11 billion dollars of insurance monies injected into the rebuild with other private insurance contributing another $20 billion

“There is nowhere in the world where around $30 billion dollars of insurance proceeds have been applied to the rebuild of a city of 400,000 people”.

“The Government have injected around $8.5 billion into land, infrastructure and amenities”.

Townsend makes other factual and compelling points about Christchurch and Canterbury, as it becomes a city of choice.

• A total of 1100 commercial buildings in the city were lost in the earthquakes but they might be replaced by just 400 buildings.

• By the end of 2020 Christchurch is going to have as much hotel accommodation as it had before the earthquakes.

• Christchurch will be the safest city in New Zealand because all the shonky stuff has gone.

• The city will be the most energy efficient city in New Zealand because it has rebuilt to a new code of double glazed windows, better insulation, heat pumps under the floors to heat the concrete pads and it all results in much cheaper electricity.

• A total of 25,000 Christchurch houses were destroyed or had in excess of 100,000 of damage in the earthquakes.

• There is no other city better equipped in primary, secondary and tertiary education, by a country mile.

• Canterbury is regarded as having one of the top six health systems in the world.

• Christchurch is going to be the most accessible city in the country as its traffic infrastructure is taking off with the southern motorway, the northern arterial route and the west diversion.

• A taxi driver told Townsend that many of his overseas passengers says the drive from the airport into the city is the most beautiful airport to city drive in the world

• Christchurch is the only city in the world with under a million people that has a daily Airbus 380 service

• The city is a target for medical specialists and doctors wanting to live and work in Christchurch. Why – Brexit, Trump, lone-wolf terrorism and Christchurch is seen to be a safe bolt-hole for people to live and bring up their kids; it’s really a compelling proposition.

• Canterbury is not all about dairy. Canterbury grows 68 percent of the world’s radish seeds and 34 percent of the world’s carrot seeds

• Finally, the rebuild of the ChristChurch Cathedral over the next seven to 10 years must be a tourist attraction. 

Townsend says, why not, instead of fencing it off and wrapped in white plastic, why not put glass panelling around the outside of it? Why not put a couple of grandstands in the Square so people can look into the rebuild? And why not make the rebuild of the ChristChurch Cathedral a positive experience for tourists.