A Botany Downs reader shares her story of losing her husband, the significance of Anzac Day and a marvellous chess set hand-carved by a war veteran
While the lockdowns had been difficult for everyone, I think they are far worse for people who are on their own.
I found this out first-hand as initially my husband Graham was here but he was unwell and so when it was time for “Standing At Dawn” on Anzac Day I did that by myself.
However, several households of neighbours were out there a bit later on. It was quite eerie being out there in the dark. I took an electronic candle and then there was the wonderful sound of a bugle call. I will never forget that Anzac Day 2020.
Earlier, when Graham was not so ill, we went to Valentine’s Day at the RSA and there was also music out on the deck at the RSA however, after that, Graham’s health deteriorated.
One evening he came out of the kitchen after making a coffee and then suddenly fell to the floor and the mug made a loud crash.
I raced over to him and he was saying, “help me up.” Those were his last words.
They transferred him from Auckland Hospital to Middlemore Hospital to make it easier for me to visit. It was awful visiting as there was quite a wait to get past the sentries at the entrance.
When I finally saw Graham he was in a room by himself. I talked to him to see if he would wake up. After a lengthy time doing that, I began to worry. When a nurse came by, she told me to talk into his ear as the hearing is about the last faculty to go. Her saying that upset me.
Then worse, she came and gave me a brochure that said, “What to expect when someone is dying”. It was so upsetting as that news arriving like that seemed just terribly distressing.
She came back later with his patient’s property bag that had all of his stuff in it – what he was wearing – his wallet and watch. I was carrying that big bag and became upset as I’d parked a long way away to avoid the parking charges.
This routine went on for four days.
On the fifth day I was just going out the door when the phone rang and it was the hospital saying the worst news, that he’d passed away at around 7am.
Then they asked if I wanted to view him. I said I didn’t know. Then the woman said, “Well then, if you’re unsure – then it is better that you do as later you may regret not seeing him”.
So I decided to and it was way downstairs where he was just lying all wrapped up like a mummy.
I thought it was odd that there were some beads of perspiration on his forehead, like somehow he had been struggling.
It was horrible as I had never been inside a hospital morgue before. Under the tight lockdown, I couldn’t organise anything for his funeral. The undertaker I rang said he would be out for the money, then he came back a few days later with the ashes.
The lockdowns have been so ghastly. I did gardening and, before it wasn’t so bad as we had each other, played a lot of Scrabble and Graham asked me if I’d like to learn chess. My brother had taught me it ages ago but I couldn’t remember it very well.
Graham got the chess set out and said it had been his Grandfather’s set that he had hand-made. I stared at it for a very long time and marvelled at all of the detail on the pieces. It was extraordinary that this wooden set could be all hand-carved.
Graham told me the story behind it. The chess set had been hand-made by his Grandfather on his Dad’s side of the family. Graham related to me that when he was a little boy, he would go and stay sometimes with his Grandparents at a villa in Kingsland.
His Grandmother was quite cheery and would talk away to him when she set him up to do duties in the kitchen with stirring this or measuring that. They had a lot of good times together but he wondered why Grandfather was always in this room at the other end of the house.
He would just come out, have his dinner and then go back into that same room and close the door behind him, like he just wanted peace.
One day, Grandmother told Graham that Grandfather had been overseas to fight in World War I and he’d fought at Gallipoli and then wasn’t ever the same again, so he had a little woodwork shop in the spare room and just worked on making wooden things like the chess set all day long.
One day, said Graham, the Grandfather told him he would take him into the woodworking room and show him around, just so long as he didn’t touch anything. Apparently, there were all kinds of items in various stages of being made. Graham would have been a bright little chap and so understood all of the items in various stages of construction.
Graham was thrilled that the chess set was passed down to him. He received it just as in the photograph, with the little piece of fabric – tied into a bow [below]- over the main container that held all the pieces.
When I look at its detail, I think about all the hours he must have concentrated on carving the delicate little pieces. I expect that may have been his way of coping with what would have been an absolutely horrific time to get through, the terrible fighting at Gallipoli where so many lives were lost.
I showed the chess set to Howick Local Board Member John Spiller, knowing that his brother Paul is an avid chess player and also a chess champion.
I was quite astounded when John – with his astute eye for detail – had turned the chess board over and noticed it had a draughts board on the reverse side.
Graham took me to Kingsland where he tried to find his Grandparents’ old home. He thought that he found it but was not absolutely positive, as there were a few similar.
Incidentally, my Grandson Billy was in a chess club at Howick Intermediate and the Times ran an article about that with a photo of Billy.
I was taking a photo of them as my brother Warwick lives in Canberra and he was over for a short break.
However, in the background you can see Billy and Warwick totally engrossed in a chess match with the chess set made by Graham’s Grandfather.
After their match, Graham realised that Warwick had won but Graham said to him, “If I was you – I wouldn’t play Billy again though.”
He is now all grown-up and at the moment in the USA where he has a great job using his extraordinary artistic ability.
Quite likely Billy will inherit this remarkable chess board. I am thinking rather frequently about Graham’s Grandfather, how many hours he must have worked away in that woodworking room. It seems sad thinking about it but people have different ways of coping following trauma.
Around Anzac Day I always like to be on a poppy stand for the Howick RSA and also go out to Waikumete Cemetery to lay a poppy or some flowers on my father’s Bronze Plaque. S.A. Hughes. He fought in the 35th Battalion of the 3rd Army in The Pacific as a Vickers machine gunnery sergeant.
While our grandchildren Billy, Nicole and Jorgia were laying flowers for the Grandfather they never knew – Graham was hunting through the vast numbers for his Grandfather’s Plaque. There were just so many from Gallipoli. Then the heavens opened up and the heaviest rain came belting down and we had to leave.
Perhaps this year I will be able to go out west and find it.
Colleen M Wright, Botany Downs
