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Road discrepancies
In the April 29 edition, Brenda Salt parroted Colin Smith in his nonsense assertion that “only 30 residents live on Govan Wilson Road and 11 vehicles a day use it”. Who makes this stuff up – the flat earth society perhaps?
To set the record straight, approximately 70 households exist on Govan Wilson Road, almost all of them permanently occupied.
Apparently 0.42 people live in each of these houses, and only 1 in 6 actually own a car. Quite a unique road it would seem …
Michael Dixon, Matakana
Horses that served
I read Marion Walsh’s contribution Horses go to War (MM Apr 15). It was an interesting two column excursion through the North Auckland/Northland history of the mounted rifles militias of the late 19th century-early 20th century that formed an important part of our early civil defence and a significant division of the NZEF sent to WWI.
The last four sentences of the final paragraph carried a most chillingly stunning reminder of the huge part equine support has played in the history of internal and trans-national wars, the manned armed conflicts over the millennia until it ended around the second decade of the 20th century and the splurge of mechanisation that has since replaced horse power.
Notwithstanding the efforts of writers of all genres to bring the role of horses to peacetime attention – not least Michael Morpurgo’s gigantic literary effort – the drafting, training and dispatch of horses to theatres of action was a monumental exercise undertaken by all sides engaged in fighting.
Around 10,000 horses are thought to have been NZ’s contribution (aside from our men and women) to serve in contingents overseas. That only four horses are documented to have returned is an awful indictment, a surviving testament to the ultimate disposability of life, whether on two or four legs, surrendered to war service and endured and condoned by civil societies everywhere at the time and long after.
That in the end, some of the huge cavalcade of horses were sold at the close of hostilities and never repatriated does not excuse the more repellent fact that the vast majority of war horses, once the need for their multi-level contributions was deemed past, were conveniently and quickly destroyed.
Take a moment to pause longer during this annual season of remembrance for the fallen and consider man’s second-best friend … who else shall remember them?
Gerald Turnbull, Warkworth
