The story of Wanganui's Krupp gun covers a century of different locations, purposes, attitudes and conditions, but now the weapon stands on public display in a building especially constructed as a war memorial.
Fully restored - and in firing order - the gun's long trek from the furnaces of the Krupp foundries and armaments division to battlefields of South Africa, and from there to a New Zealand provincial town, has now been thoroughly documented in a book.
Geoff Lawson, who restored the Krupp gun to its original condition, has written a biography of the artillery piece, Our Gun: a Wanganui Krupp Gun Story, that is also a new perspective of the Anglo-Boer War.
"It has been a seven-year effort," says Geoff, "and it started about a year after I became involved with the Krupp gun restoration, before any really serious work began on it.
"But I woke up one day and realised that it would be finished one day and people would want to know about it, and it would help if we had the relevant information to give them."
Geoff approached the Whanganui Regional Museum for information but a shoe box with a couple of bits of paper in it was all they could find.
However, he did come away with an address of a South African researcher who had contacted the museum some years before. MC Heunis, Onderofficer of the Orange Free State Artillery Corps Re-enactment and Historical Study Group, has earned a credit in Geoff's book because of his knowledge of Krupp guns in general, and some of Wanganui's Krupp gun in particular.
"I went to the library, took out every book on the Anglo-Boer War and read them all from cover to cover," says Geoff. It was then he realised there was quite a story there.
"Most of the books on the Anglo-Boer War are New Zealand-written and orientated and essentially about New Zealand's participation ... but little about the war itself except in the most generic terms."
He now owns a collection of further reading bought from second-hand shops, including some interesting writings by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The Krupp gun biography was originally going to be a pamphlet with a couple of photos, but, as Geoff's knowledge of the gun and its war grew, so did his writing, until he now has an A4-sized book of 94 pages and many colour and monochrome photographs, many of which have never been published before.
It was MC Heunis who sent Geoff photos and contacted colleagues in South Africa who did the same, from which has been built a fine, historical collection.
Of course, the book is bigger than a biography of the Krupp gun. "There's only so much you Geoff a gun writer now biography finished
can write about a gun and what you can do with it," says Geoff, "but once I realised it had to go further, I knew I had to encompass the war."
It became clear, he says, that few New Zealanders had any knowledge about the war in South Africa. To that end, the book covers the causes of the war and the protagonists, then, once the war starts, concentrates on the Western Front where "our" gun was used.
Geoff's knowledge of the Anglo-Boer War is extensive, as one would imagine, and his reading gave him a firm grounding in world foreign policy at the turn of the 19th century. He relates his findings with humour and a measure of worldly cynicism, telling a story of political greed and military ineptitude.
He starts the book with a poem by Private Smith of the Black Watch, penned after the disaster at Magersfontein in December 1899. The paper quality is superb and the photographs are well reproduced, a tribute to H&A; Print of Wanganui. This book will be a collector's item, of that there is no doubt.
Geoff is a first-time author, but his love and knowledge of things "old" is extensive. He has a lifelong interest in restoring - and using - old firearms and has had success in blackpowder events.
He is a trustee of the Wanganui Antiquities Trust, a group that preserves publicly owned historic items. He was involved with the restoration of the steamboat Waimarie and the riverboat museum building.
Geoff is hoping to launch the book "some time around Easter" to coincide with his 63rd birthday and also his 40th wedding anniversary.
Last Monday, Geoff had a guest spot on Jim Mora's Afternoons show on Radio NZ National Radio, talking about the book, the gun and the war. That interview is still on line at www.radionz.co.nz/national - click on Afternoons and select Monday, February 27 from the left-hand menu, then click on "Whanganui's antique Krupp artillery gun" to hear the piece.