Author to share tale of forgotten Bulford Kiwi

Author Colleen Brown will talk about her book - The Bulford Kiwi - at the Davis Lecture Theatre on Thursday. Photo/Christopher John

Colleen Brown, author of The Bulford Kiwi - The Kiwi We Left Behind will give a talk about the book at Whanganui Regional Museum on Thursday night.

Her book tells the intriguing story of a 130m-tall kiwi, carved into a hill in southern England in 1919 by New Zealand troops waiting to go home at the end of World War I.

It is a little-known story from the end of the war when New Zealand troops waited months in Sling Camp on the Salisbury Plain for a ship to take them home.

Rioting in the camp led to plans to keep troops busy by cutting a giant kiwi into the chalk hill behind the camp.

Originally carved to keep troops busy, the kiwi became an emblem to be proud of and a cherished link to home.

For many of those involved in its construction, and later its resurrection, the Bulford Kiwi came to represent all those servicemen who passed through Sling Camp, especially those who would never go home.

The Bulford Kiwi was carved into an English hillside by New Zealand soldiers at the end of WWI. Photo/Supplied

It was a memorial built by soldiers, not governments, for themselves and their mates.

The British Government made the Bulford Kiwi a scheduled monument in 2017 to honour the New Zealand soldiers who played a significant role in the Battle of Messines, fought in June 1917, in Belgium.

Brown is a well known local body politician, serving on the Manukau City Council for nine years and is currently a Counties Manukau District Health Board Member.

She is an educationalist and disability advocate and was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2000 for her contributions to education, community and disability.

Colleen Brown will speak at the museum's Davis Theatre in Watt St at 5.30pm on Thursday, May 31 at 5.30pm. Free entry (koha appreciated), Complimentary wine and juice available.