Sculpture commemorates fallen soldier

Mike and Jane Hardy with Auckland artist Helen Pollock and her husband Derek Brickell in front of Jacob's Ladder, honouring Private Lance Hardy.

A sculpture rising more than 4m towards the heavens has been erected as a monument to a Central Hawke's Bay man killed in action on the Western Front 100 years ago yesterday.

Retired sheep and beef farmer Michael Hardy and his wife Jane commissioned Auckland artist Helen Pollock to create the sculpture Jacob's Ladder - four sets of over-sized feet, made from terracotta, climbing the rungs of a 4.1m tall steel ladder - for their farm in the foothills of the Ruahine Range.

Erected this week at the Hardys' farm at Makaretu in Ashley Clinton, about 40km west of Waipawa, the commemorative sculpture stands near a flag post flying the New Zealand flag and an information board honouring Private Lance Hardy, who was killed in action at La Basse-Ville, near Ypres, in Belgium, aged 24.

A first cousin of Mike Hardy's father, Private Hardy is represented by one of the sculpture's four pairs of feet while the others are dedicated to three soldiers from the region that Pollock and the Hardys learned also died on the same day during the same battle.

Though intended to be a memorial for all soldiers from the NZ Division who died in World War I, the sculpture was installed to mark yesterday's centenary of Private Hardy's death on July 26, 1917.

Mr Hardy said the free-standing structure leaned northeast through a gap in the trees towards Blackburn Rd, where Private Hardy grew up.

"He would have roamed up and down there [Blackburn Rd] all his boyhood. He would have gone down that road to Waipawa and on every trip he made. It would have been his playground."

Lance Hardy departed for war on July 29, 1916 - 101 years ago on Saturday.

Mr Hardy said the soldier planted an azalea at Blackburn the day before he left home and the azaleas that grew today in his garden, near the sculpture, were propagated from the original plant.

Pollock said the title for the sculpture came from Jacob's Ladder, a biblical reference expressing the connection between heaven and earth.

"It's a metaphorical Jacob's Ladder, where our heroes are ascending and in this instance literally going over the top of the trenches."

She described the Hardys' desire and efforts to erect a monument for Private Hardy and other WWI soldiers as a "truly beautiful" act.

"Everyone's heard of Passchendaele and Messines but not a lot of people know about La Basse-Ville. But 1000 Kiwi soldiers died there - it's important.

"People - generations - are still mourning and this monument speaks volumes to their depth of feeling. I think that's a wonderful thing."

Pollock has created several works commemorating the Great War. Her 2009 sculpture Falls the Shadows is on permanent display at the New Zealand Memorial in the Passchendaele Memorial Museum, Belgium.

Her work Victory Medal - which like Jacob's Ladder features feet made from the same Coromandel clay - was transported to April's 100-year commemorations of the Battle of Arras, before it was transported by the Belgian Army to the Battle of Messines centenary commemorations last month.

Consisting of 36 six pairs of feet, representing a small platoon, and standing on a rusted steel "medal" in four sections in a cross formation, Victory Medal will remain in Messines until November before it is installed permanently in the New Zealand Memorial Museum.

After seeing Pollock's work at a fundraiser, Mr Hardy approached her to create a sculpture to go with the heads in his garden of other former politicians and prime ministers who had "frustrated" him, such as former PM Jenny Shipley.

Her ceramic head can be found in his garden next to her heart - "She never had it in her," he quips.

"So while we originally contacted her [Pollock] for something funny, we ended up with something serious," Mr Hardy said.

"It looks brilliant in the afternoon and in the morning when you are out on the deck having breakfast."

He was also thrilled that, by a quirk of fate, the sun was due to rise directly behind the rungs of the ladder yesterday - exactly 100 years since Private Hardy's death.