Kyle Lockwood on his victory: Don't call it it the Lockwood flag, it's not about me

Kyle Lockwood is wondering what he can do next.

He has now ticked off two big victories - designing New Zealand's alternative national flag and successfully lobbying the Government to extend passport terms to 10 years.

"I'm not going to write a new national anthem," he told the Herald yesterday. "I'm no poet."

Mr Lockwood, who lives in Melbourne, returned to his hometown of Wellington this week just in time to see his design triumph in the first national flag referendum.

Exhausted after days in the public spotlight, and a little shy, he is looking forward to fading into the background once the two-stage referendum process is over.

"It's a bit daunting," he said. "It's been referred to as the Lockwood flag but I would prefer people called it the silver fern. It's not about me."

The 38-year-old, who works as a building designer, pulled the various motifs on his winning flag from different strands of his life.

He is "a bit old-fashioned" and included the Southern Cross as a tribute to the current flag.

He has admired the silver fern since seeing it on his father's blazer when he represented New Zealand in underwater hockey, and later wore it on his blue beret as a limited service volunteer at Burnham Military Camp in Christchurch.

The blue in the flag reflects the Pacific Ocean and the red in the stars is a distinctive Maori colour as well as a mark of sacrifice during wartime - his British grandfather survived military service behind enemy lines in Burma. His grandparents migrated to New Zealand in 1952 to serve in the air force here.

Grandmother Kathy Lockwood flew his flags outside her Breaker Bay home, where as a child Mr Lockwood used to sit at the front window and sketch ships coming in from Cook Strait.

Mrs Lockwood said she was still "very British" but had no hard feelings about NZ potentially dropping the Union Jack. "Quite honestly, I've saluted so many times that I'm sick of the sight of it."

She cried when her grandson's flag won the first referendum. "We liked his design and hoped that other people would like it as well. We never thought it would come to this."

Like New Zealand voters, the Lockwood family were divided about which of his two silver fern flags they liked the most.

Mrs Lockwood voted for the red, white and blue version, but was still unsure.

The designer himself "agonised" over his referendum vote. So which did he choose? "As I said, I'm a bit old-fashioned kind of guy. I like to keep that private."