Ted's beer

​On a shelf at the Waihao Forks Hotel sits a bottle of beer. Ted’s beer.
There are a couple of stories about how it came to be there but everyone agrees Ted was going to war and the beer was to be opened when he got back..
He never did and now the beer, a bottle of Natural XXXX beer from Ballins Brewery in Christchurch, sits unopened, in a glass cabinet waiting for its hero.
Ted d’Auvergne was born La Tour Mollet d'Auvergne to Charles Edward (from Jersey) and Lilian d’Auvergne (from the Channel Islands) in Rangiora on February 21, 1906.
He was the youngest of six children. His mother died early in his life and his father remarried. They were a farming family, having a property on Stoney Creek Road near Waihao Forks, right behind the local pub.
Often called the nickname Froggie, his ancestors had been French and arrived in Akaroa in 1856.
Ted was known as an athletic, humorous inventive man, who once saved the life of a woman at the local swimming hole. He damaged his hearing in a diving accident.
Ted enlisted for the Second World War three days after enlistment opened on September 16, 1939. He managed to conceal his impaired hearing. He was posted to the 27th machine gun Battalion.
He was invited to the pub for a leaving drink and as the train whistled he handed his beer to publican George Provan and said he’d have it when he got back. An alternative version has two mates leaving the beer for him at the pub.
Ted served in North Africa and Crete and was listed as missing in June 1941 and declared dead in 1945.
It was a few years later that his family heard from a Cretan partisan who told Ted’s story. Ted had been wounded in a vineyard while his platoon retreated. He was found by a young man who tried to help him but Ted died two days later.
Ted was buried in the vineyard but later his body was exhumed (this was common for war dead) and buried in Suda Bay war cemetery.
Two years ago a bronze statue of Ted was put outside the pub, forever waiting for the train to take him to war. He stands - or rather sits - remembering all those from the Waimate District - and New Zealand - who served.
Pic by Bart ros.
To all those who went, to those who came back and for those who waited - Lest We Forget.