Celebrating soldiers' places

Red poppies are decorating street signs throughout Hastings. Photo / Warren Buckland

The poppies adorning street signs throughout Hastings aren't simply for decoration.

Nigel St, named after Havelock North soldier Nigel Alexander McLean, is the seventh street in Hastings to be identified as a "Poppy Place" and included in a national register.

The project aims to identify, research and celebrate places that have been named in memory of New Zealand soldiers.

Mr McLean was born in 1884, the youngest of Allan and Hannah McLean's nine children. He grew up in Duart House, which his parents built. At that time, the historic homestead was on a large farming estate.

In 1901, at age 17, McLean enlisted in the New Zealand Army and went on to serve in the Boer War.

Between wars, he trained as an engineer and helped his brother set up a garage in Havelock North, before taking on an engineering role with the Union Oil Company of California.

He was promoted to sergeant in the Wellington Mounted Rifle Brigade, and wounded at Anzac Cove in August 1915. By October, he was dangerously ill and was admitted to hospital in Gibraltar, where he died of his wounds on October 20. He was in his early thirties.

The young man has taken some of his mysteries to the grave. Though he had never married, despite being an eligible bachelor from a well-to-do family, there is rumoured to have been a mystery woman in his life.

A Miss Stark was listed as a next of kin on one of his army documents - but the family has no idea of who she was.

Mr McLean's commemoration, starting at 1pm tomorrow, will be held at the intersection of Nigel and Chambers St in Havelock North.

His family's descendants will be at the ceremony, with Hastings Deputy Mayor Cynthia Bowers, Tukituki MP and Minister of Veterans' Affairs Craig Foss and members of the local RSA.

-For more information, visit: poppyplaces.nz.

To advise of streets that should be considered for inclusion in the programme, please email: poppyplaces@hdc.govt.nz.