Wanganui offers fond memories

The tale of how New Zealand Masters Games world record breaker Dirk Stobbe came to be in Wanganui for this event takes as many trails and turns as you can imagine.

Stobbe set a new world 70-79 500m lightweight indoor rowing mark of 1min 47.3sec, breaking the previous mark of 1min 48.7s held by fellow Aussie Phillip Brice.

But while Australia is now the Stobbe home - Geelong in Victoria specifically - the tale of how he got there makes fascinating reading, including his unusual 1958 Wanganui connection.

Dutch-born Stobbe is from the West Frisian Islands, the small island of Terschelling to be exact - just off the coast of The Netherlands.

And it's an island that was in the direct Bomber Command path between England and Germany.

Altogether there were 128 aircrew, French, Poles, Aussies, British, Canadians - and Kiwis, washed up on the island, some identifiable, some not.

Island authorities buried them and vowed to give them a good home.

The children were given much of the responsibility.

Stobbe, at school during World War II, was one of those allocated a gravestone to keep in pristine condition, which he said he did with great pride.

He was in charge of the resting place of Flying Officer Ian Johnson, of Wellington, the captain of a Wellington bomber laying mines.

"I was 10 when this happened and looked after the grave until well after the war and corresponded with the Johnson family in Wellington after the war," Stobbe said.

"They eventually invited me out to stay [some 10 years after the war], which I did, and stayed for six months or so.

"While I was there I joined the Petone Rowing Club and I was part of a novice four that took part in a regatta on the Whanganui River. After the racing, the boys said 'we're off to get beer and fish and chips'."

So Stobbe, who had a career as a footballer in Gisborne before moving to Melbourne and eventually Geelong, remembers Wanganui "as the place I was introduced to fish and chips".

Stobbe and wife Merriel drove around the city when they arrived but didn't find many familiar landmarks - and certainly no fish and chip shop in the place he remembered.