Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

I have to confess. I had a bad dose of the bug this weekend. It was a bit out of season, since it normally hits the population bad around Anzac Day. I caught it this weekend because I was in New Plymouth to take part in a panel discussion about Fiona Jack’s exciting exhibition at the Govett-Brewster, ‘Living Halls‘, on war memorial halls. Fiona has the bug real bad. She has spent over two years exploring the history of the halls.  There were also quite a number in the audience who seemed to be infected. They enthusiastically kept us talking about war memorials for almost two hours on a Saturday afternoon!

You’ve probably realised by now the nature of the bug. It is a strange affliction which makes its sufferers get terribly excited about concrete phallic objects, called war memorials. In bad cases the patients do everything in their powers to seek out new memorials.

I first caught the infection some 25 years ago. Chris Maclean and myself were writing a book on stained glass windows, and since we were travelling round the country with cameras, we thought photographing a few war memorials might make interesting subject matter for a calendar or a set of cards. It was when we looked at the slides later on a big screen that we both became infected. We realised that almost every memorial was different, and that an extraordinary amount of social energy had gone into thinking about every memorial’s location, symbolism and wording. But, try as we might, we were unable to spread the bug to others. My kids used to sigh with impatience every time I brought the car screaming to a halt and started burbling with excitement at the local sculpted soldier or cenotaph. Chris and I decided to write a book about the subject, but this also showed that the populace were as yet resistant. The Government Printer, on its last legs before disappearing, took a punt and printed about 1,500 copies of the book – The sorrow and the pride. It was not sound commercial judgement – they were obviously off-colour themselves. The book sold no more than about 200 copies. We decided to send one to every school in the country, but both Chris and myself were left with boxes unsold and unread.

Slowly the infection spread. When NZHistory.net.nz decided to use some of our photos and present a database of First World War memorials, we were astounded by the number of people who started to drive round their neighbourhood and systematically record on film the local memorials. The images started to roll in. People began writing to me regularly asking about particular memorials. It was not yet an epidemic, but the infection was starting to catch.

The people at the Govett-Brewster have got a bad case. Three gallery spaces are devoted to Fiona’s exhibition. In the first we see the work of largely realist artists from all round the country who were asked to paint their local memorial hall. They have done so with amazing devotion.

In the second space Fiona has hung a series of ‘honour boards’ modelled on the boards which are often found in halls recording those who served and (marked with an asterisk) those who died from the district. Fiona’s boards list the halls in each province, with asterisks for those which have gone – died in the service of their community.

The third gallery is the most striking of the lot. Fiona, by now well and truly a sufferer, examined the over 700 files of applications to the Department of Internal Affairs for subsidies for war memorial halls. She has reproduced beautifully, complete with the folds in the paper and the rubbings out, the sketches that were included in these applications. They are a wonderful expression of the folk art of late 1940s New Zealand. Here we see communities around the country planning a memorial hall where they might have euchre evenings, dances on Saturday night, and meetings of the Country Women’s Institute.

So watch out. The disease is loose; and if you visit the Govett-Brewster you will almost certainly get infected. But don’t worry too much, if you catch it. It is actually an affliction well worth having.

Postscript

The Govett-Brewster has kindly sent us some of the official images from the exhibition, which we’ve included below.