Psychics search for soldiers' graves

Psychics have helped in a search for unmarked graves near Patea.
Residents said they wanted the graves found in submissions on a South Taranaki District Council proposal to develop the town's beach area. The development could include subdivision of coastal land.
South Taranaki was densely settled by Maori and was a place of conflict during European settlement in the mid to late 1800s. The graves the council wants to find are the graves of imperial and colonial soldiers killed during the battles of the 1860s and 1870s.
The area to be investigated is around the town's river and beach, for armed constabulary graves, and its golf course and the Kakaramea township for imperial soldiers' graves.
But it appears there may be other graves as well.
At yesterday's Patea Community Board meeting the council's environmental services manager Graham Young said two people with "certain skills" had been helping out.
He didn't say whether John Hovell of Gisborne and Dick Hagenson of Tikorangi had been paid for their assistance. "They came up with a wealth of information. There was different information from the two, which makes the job harder."
At the meeting yesterday was local resident Denis McKenna, who has been searching old newspapers and doing some investigation himself.
He said some of what the psychics said gave him the "creepies".
"I went down on the day Mr Hovell came. It was one of the most fascinating days I have had in my life. I believe some people have got these powers."
At one point on that day Mr Hovell said: "I see bodies here".
Mr McKenna remembered a former Patea policeman putting skeletons uncovered among the sand dunes at the edge of the golf course into sacks. One was found At least two of them did not appear to be imperial soldiers ? one was a woman and there were remains of flax and fern and rotted wooden coffins.
Mr Hovell had pointed right at that spot, Mr McKenna said. The chair of the meeting, South Taranaki's Cr Ian Wards, said the further the matter went the more questions seemed to arise.
Mr Hovell had identified large areas and archaeological investigation would be lengthy, complex and expensive.
An approach not favoured by the council had been for a major project to find and protect the graves and use them as a public awareness opportunity.
Council's mandate had been to look only for soldiers' graves, but people's expectations had been raised.
"It leaves us in a tricky situation," Mr Young said.
He would be meeting staff of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and would get their advice on how to proceed.
"What happens now hinges on what the ministry comes back with, if it's prepared to resource a wider brief," Cr Wards said.