From Cairo to Ngatimoti

Or Around the World in 100 Years: the WW1 postcard that lost its way

Front of Hector Guy’s postcard. A. McFadgen

Poignant flotsam from the First World War, postcards written by serving soldiers to family, friends and sweethearts can be found in museums, antique shops, second-hand stores and estate sales all around the world, and are much sought after by deltiologists (postcard buffs and collectors). Funny, sentimental, patriotic, photographic or picturesque, postcards first came into vogue in the latter part of the 19^th century. They reached the peak of their popularity during WWI,¹ as the perfect means of communication for servicemen often pushed for the time and opportunity to write letters and limited by military censorship as to what they could actually say.

Reverse of Hector Guy’s postcard. A. McFadgen

Some years ago a colourful postcard at a market stall in his hometown of Barnstaple caught the eye of Trevor Jennings from Devon, England. Trevor has in-laws in Waimea West and has visited New Zealand several times, so the link to the Tasman area also aroused his interest. The card, signed "Hector" and dated 16 May, 1915, had been written at Zeitoun Camp, Cairo, Egypt, to Mrs T. Strachan of Ngatimoti, New Zealand, and clearly had a First World War connection.² Zeitoun was on the outskirts of Cairo and served as a base for Anzac troops during WWI. After arriving by troopship at Alexandria, New Zealand soldiers underwent intensive training in the desert surrounding Zeitoun before being shipped off to Gallipoli, the Middle East and the Western Front.

Company Sergeant-Major Hector Guy (1890-1917) WWI service no 6/244. Tyree Collection/Nelson Provincial Museum Permanent Collection, ref. 97245

The rediscovery of the postcard recently while Trevor was moving house coincided with the centenary of the campaign on Gallipoli and prompted him to see if he could find out more about it and perhaps send it “home” to New Zealand. An online search led him to articles I'd written about the Ngatimoti War Memorial and Frank Strachan, giving him a clue to the identity of the postcard's author - Frank's cousin, Hector Guy. Trevor then contacted me, and soon afterwards the postcard was winging its way to my home in  Ngatimoti, a stone’s throw away from where the Guy family once lived. Thanks to Trevor's generosity, Hector's message finally made it to Ngatimoti, New Zealand, almost exactly a hundred years after he penned it.

Hector Guy's postcard doesn’t appear to have ever been postmarked or franked by military authorities. How it lost its way is a mystery unlikely to ever be solved after all this time, but by whatever means, it had joined that host of mislaid and discarded messages destined to remain unclaimed after the “War to end all Wars” ended.

Transcript of Hector Guy’s postcard

This was written on the 16^th of May, 1915, at Zeitoun Camp, Cairo, Egypt, to his Aunt Ida (Mrs Thomas Strachan) of Ngatimoti, New Zealand.

Zeitoun Camp, 16-5-1915. So pleased to receive your letter two days ago. Time does fly – it doesn’t seem like a year ago I was with you – fancy little David remembering me. He has grown a lot in the photo you sent me of the children. I sent a P.C. [postcard] in answer to that a fortnight ago and hope it will arrive all right.  I have made inquiries about Frank Waghorn but so far have not been able to find any trace of him, he is not in our regiment. I will continue to make inquiries and will let you know if I hear anything of him. I had [a] letter from home on Sunday night and was surprised to hear you knew about the fighting so soon. This is a street scene in the best of the native qtrs [quarters] - the worst are too dirty to remain in long. You would be very amused here at first to see a man with a moustache wearing a long dress like a woman – some places one can’t distinguish the sex. Sorry Uncle Tom hadn’t a better crop of raspberries. Much love to you all. Hector.

Who were Hector Guy, his Aunt Ida and others mentioned in his postcard?

The Guy family at "Sunny Brae", Ngatimoti, pre-War. L-R: Back row (standing): Arthur, Margaret (Daisy), Hector Front row (seated): John A. Guy, Ruth, Elizabeth (Lily) Guy, Walter. Guy Collection/Nelson Provincial Museum Collection, ref. 315235

Albert Hector Guy (always called Hector, or “Hec” by his mates) was born 11 October 1890, the second child of John Arliss and Elizabeth Mouter (nee Strachan) Guy. Their farm ran from Waiwhero Road into the Orinoco Valley at Ngatimoti, a small rural settlement in the Motueka River Valley about 51km from Nelson. The Guys’ homestead, “Sunny Brae”, sat on the knoll of a hill looking down Waiwhero Road towards St James Anglican Church and the Mt Arthur Range beyond and was opposite the first Ngatimoti School, established in 1868. Hector had four siblings – Walter (the eldest), Margaret (Daisy), Arthur and Ruth.³

Walter Alexander Cochrane Guy (1887-1918). WWI serial no 2599. Tyree Studio, Nelson Provincial Museum ref. 97986

John Guy served as Ngatimoti's Postmaster from 1892 till the early 1920s, with the post office and telegraph service operating from "Sunny Brae". The two youngest children, first Arthur, then Ruth, helped out in turn and could be seen dashing down the hill by either bicycle or horseback to deliver telegrams, a distressing job for Ruth during the war years on those occasions when they brought dreaded news from the frontlines. The post office's telephone line was for many years the only one in the Motueka Valley, and because John Guy was the first to be officially notified, he and his son Hector tolled the St James Church bell on 5 August 1914 to announce the anticipated news that New Zealand had joined Britain in declaring war on Germany.⁴ When the armistice was signed, the bell was rung all day long in celebration.

Known to all as “Lily” or ‘Lil”, Elizabeth Strachan had been the girl next door and married John Guy at St James Church, Ngatimoti on 21 April 1886, the Reverend Samuel Poole officiating. Theirs was the first wedding to be held in the small community-built church, sited on land donated by John’s father, Walter Guy of ”Moutere House”, and consecrated by Bishop Suter on October 28 1884.⁵

John’s parents, Walter and Leah (nee Gregory) Guy, had left England as newly-weds on the “Larkins”, arriving in Nelson on 12 November 1849. They settled in Motueka, later establishing a farm at Lower Moutere in the Central Road area where they raised a family of seven. John, born in 1850, was the oldest and their only son. Around 1874 Walter Guy bought a block of former Crown Grant land at Ngatimoti from James George Deck and turned over its management to his son John.

Strachan family gathering at "Manawatane", New Year's Day, 1909. Guy Collection/Nelson Provincial Museum Collection, ref. 315175

The Strachan family were farming neighbours – their Strachan Road property, “Manawatane”, shared a common boundary with the Guys’. Lily’s brothers Gavin, Alexander (Alec), John (Jack) and Thomas (Tom) all had farms in proximity to “Sunny Brae”, with Alec Strachan taking over the "Manawatane" home farm after the deaths of their parents Benjamin and Jean. An older brother, James (Jamie), had died in 1861 at the age of twelve and her only sister Mary moved to Marlborough, then Stoke after her marriage in 1876.

Cousins Frank Strachan & Arthur Guy. They enlisted together in January 1916. Arthur made it home, Frank was killed at the Somme on 12 November, 1916. Tyree Studio Collection/Nelson Provincial Museum Collection, ref. 89476

Benjamin Strachan emigrated from Scotland on the “Admiral Grenfell” in 1853 with his wife Jean Pringle (nee Cochrane) and young son Jamie. They had intended to join Nelson merchant and banker David Sclanders, a relative of his wife’s, but instead took up farming at Riwaka before shifting to Ngatimoti in 1872.⁶ Benjamin was a cooper by trade and passed on his craft to his sons. In addition to running the farm they had a workshop and smithy at “Manawatane” where they turned out for local consumption buckets, butter churns, kegs and the popular casks used for transporting harvested raspberries to the Motueka Wharf for distribution, much of it to jam factories like Kirkpatrick’s in Nelson.⁷ Raspberries served as a vital cash crop on Ngatimoti’s mostly small mixed farms for many years before being replaced by tobacco from the mid-1920s to the late-1990s.⁸ The Strachans also undertook commissions, like the rimu tubs and boxes made to package the finished product at Motueka’s first butter factory.⁹ The youngest of the Strachan brothers, Tom, had an inventive streak and a particular skill in working with tools and machinery which he passed on to his sons.¹⁰

Ngatimoti Territorials practicing drill before setting out for the Military Tournament held in Auckland, January 1914. L-R: Standing: Frank Strachan, Bert Thomason, Ted Burrow Kneeling: Hector Guy, Roy Stafford. Guy Collection/Nelson Provincial Museum Collection, ref. 315157

Guy and Strachan children grew up surrounded by a close and affectionate network of aunts, uncles and cousins, and at busy times all shared tasks like haymaking, shearing and fruit and hop harvesting on the farms of various relatives and neighbours.¹¹ Before the war Hector and his brother Walter both worked as farmers, Hector for his father, and Walter on his own farm nearby. It wasn’t all work – they were also actively involved in local social life; church activities, canoeing on the river, excursions to the beach, the Tablelands and Nelson Lakes, tennis and cricket games and informal concerts and picnics. They went hunting in the hills and trained regularly with the Territorials, formed in 1911. Annual Territorials’ camps were convened at George MacMahon’s farm in Tapawera, and in January 1914, Hector travelled north with the Nelson contingent taking part in a military tournament held in conjunction with the Auckland Exhibition of 1913-4.¹²

London wedding of Cyprian Brereton and Margaret (Daisy) Guy, 5 August,1915. L-R: Standing: Major Cyprian Brereton (groom) and Hector Guy, brother of the bride and best man. Seated: Mrs Kitty Wheater and her daughter Nancy with the bride, Daisy Brereton (nee Guy), in the middle. Nelson Provincial Museum, ref. 2014.72.7

Hector enlisted with the NZ Expeditionary Force immediately after New Zealand declared war on Germany.¹³ He had been a sergeant in the 12^th (Nelson & Marlborough) Regiment of the NZ Territorial Force and was assigned the same rank in the 12^th (Nelson) Company of the newly formed Canterbury Infantry Battalion. He embarked from Wellington for Egypt on the troopship ”SS Athenic” with the Main Body of the NZEF on 16 October 1914, and took part in the Battle of the Suez Canal in early February 1915 and at Gallipoli, where he was wounded at Quinn’s Post four months later. Being on recuperation leave in England at the time, on 5 August 1915 Hector was able to stand as best man at the London wedding of his sister Daisy to his good friend Major Cyprian Bridge (Cyp) Brereton of Ngatimoti, commanding officer of the 12^th (Nelson) Company.¹⁴ Cyprian and Daisy Brereton would go on to have four children and called their first child William Hector. Like the uncle he was named for, he was always known by his second name, Hector.

After rejoining his unit at the NZ Division's camp at El Moascar in Egypt, Hector Guy was redeployed to the Western Front where he went on to fight with distinction, being posthumously awarded the Meritorious Service Medal and a Mention in Despatches, in both cases "for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty".¹⁵ He held the rank of Company Sergeant-Major by the time he was killed in action below Bellevue Spur at Passchendaele on what is known as NZ’s “blackest day” of WWI, 12 October 1917. He was 27. 

Brothers-in-law CSM Hector Guy (seated) and Major Cyprian Bridge Brereton in France,1916. Major Brereton paid tribute to Hector in his wartime memoir, "Tales of Three Campaigns", praising his fearlessness, and the "serene temper and unselfish good nature which gave him a host of friends". Nelson Provincial Museum Copy Collection, ref. C3722

Hector Guy’s comrade Sergeant Cecil Malthus later recalled:

Hector was great fun, really solid in his fundamental qualities, but liable to go off the deep end just for devilment. He had an amazing courage that looked like sheer recklessness, but I believe he was deeply stirred and stimulated by danger, and that made him a grand leader.He was found with a bullet through the brain, but still on his feet and gazing out over the parapet - a fitting and symbolic end. I still think of Hector’s death with a pang of loss, more perhaps than for any other man who was killed in France.¹⁶

Like so many others, Hector Guy’s body was lost and he is commemorated at the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing at Zonnebeke in Belgium.

All three of John and Lily Guy’s sons – Walter, Hector and Arthur – served during WWI, leaving their parents and two sisters struggling to run the two family farms as best they could. Walter (named for his paternal grandfather), was born 20 August 1887, and attended Nelson College between 1903-4. He was a keen amateur photographer and many of the scenes of rural life he recorded at Ngatimoti can still be seen in the Guy Collection held by the Nelson Provincial Museum.  Walter enlisted on 29 May 1916 and served as a private with the 19^th Reinforcements, 12^th (Nelson) Company, Canterbury Infantry Battalion. Holding the temporary rank of corporal, he spent ten months at Sling Camp in England as an instructor before being deployed to France where he reverted to the ranks as a private.¹⁷ He was killed in the field at the age of 31 while trying to rescue a wounded man at Colincamps on 27 March 1918, one of over 500 fatalities suffered by the NZ Division at the Somme during a last-ditch stand to hold Allied lines against a German offensive of unprecedented scale labelled “Operation Michael”. He is commemorated with other members of the Canterbury Regiment at the Grévillers (New Zealand) Memorial to the Missing at Pas de Calais, France.

Raspberry pickers at Ngatimoti. Cart loaded with filled casks of the type made by Strachan Brothers. Guy Collection/Nelson Provincial Museum Collection, ref. 315085

With both Hector and Walter now dead, under the exemptions permitted by the Military Service Act of 1916 John Guy was able to have Arthur, as his sole surviving son, recalled home from active duty in July 1918, on compassionate grounds.¹⁸ Arthur, a sergeant with the NZ Cyclists Corps at the time of his release from service, was born 18 May 1895 and grew up helping out on the family farm, but had plans to follow a different career path which were thwarted by the war. He had been working as a clerk at the Otaki Railways branch of the Bank of New Zealand before he and his cousin Frank Strachan signed up together with the 12^th (Nelson) Company Reserves at Trentham on 12 January 1916, but the changed family circumstances meant he spent the rest of his life as a farmer, running both his father's and brother Walter's farms as a single unit. On 1 August 1923 he was married in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Helen Friesen, a Canadian schoolteacher who came to Ngatimoti on a summer raspberry picking holiday, and one of their grandchildren still farms the remaining Guy land at Ngatimoti today. 

Walter, Hector and their cousin Frank Strachan, only son of Alexander and Mary (nee Bowden) Strachan of "Manawatane", are commemorated in New Zealand at the Ngatimoti War Memorial, erected in front of St James Church on land donated by the Guy family and unveiled on Anzac Day, 25 April 1921. The War Memorial project was spearheaded by Walter and Hector's sister Daisy, who served as chairwoman on the highly effective local Ladies’ Committee set up to oversee its completion.

David & Helen Beatson with their ten children at "Woodland Terrace". L-R: Standing at back: William (Willie), Ida, Walter, J. Guthrie, George Middle: Cecil, Helen (nee Griffin) Beatson, David Beatson. Front: Charles, Ethelind (Ethie), Helen (Nellie), Henry (Harry). Courtesy Mr E. Stevens

The intended recipient of Hector’s postcard was his Aunt Ida, wife of his mother's youngest brother, Thomas Pringle Strachan (1868-1941). Ida Helena Strachan nee Beatson (1872-1953) was the oldest daughter of David Guthrie Beatson, one of three sons of Nelson architect William Beatson who took up land in the Orinoco Valley around 1864 - David, Arthur Henry and Charles Edward (an architect like his father). Her mother, Helen (nee Griffin), was a member of the family who established the Griffins’ biscuit factory in Nelson. Their connection to Ngatimoti dated back to 1860, when Helen's father John Griffin set up a farm called "'Lawrencedale" in the Waiwhero area, where they were part of a idealistic community of like-minded friends including the families of Appleby schoolteacher Lewis Bryant¹⁹ and charismatic Plymouth Brethren preacher James George Deck. Due to poor land and lack of practical farming experience this proved a short-lived and financially disastrous venture, soon abandoned by the Griffins for a return to the city of Nelson by 1863. "Mr Griffin lost all he had invested and Father came out a broken-down old man," remarked Lewis Bryant Jnr later.²⁰ James Deck also suffered; both his first and second wives and his youngest son died in the Waiwhero Valley.

David Beatson and Helen Griffin married on 11 March 1869 and raised ten children at their Orinoco home, “Woodland Terrace”. Ida was related by marriage to nearly all of the players in this story. Another of her father's brothers, John James Beatson, married her husband Tom's oldest sister, Mary Sclanders Strachan; her uncle Charles E. Beatson married John Guy's sister Mary Alice; her brother John Guthrie Beatson married Cyprian Brereton's sister Helen, and her sister Ethelind (Ethie) married Cyprian's brother Allen Brereton. Just to add to the matrimonial tangle, before he married Mary Strachan, Ida's uncle John J. Beatson had previously been engaged to her mother's older sister Alice Griffin, who died early at the age of 20 in 1864.²¹ A cousin, Arthur Griffin, may well have been influenced by the Beatson family connection to become a well-known Nelson architect in his own right.

Frank & Kate Waghorn’s family at the Guy family home, “Sunny Brae”. Guy Collection/Nelson Provincial Museum Collection, ref. 315174

Tom and Ida’s marriage on 4 November 1902 was followed by a wedding party held at “Manawatane”, an enjoyable social occasion for friends and family, many of them from the local community.²² They had three children, Vida, Douglas and David Pringle Strachan (1912-1983). David would have been about three at the time he was mentioned in his uncle Hector Guy’s postcard. In 1906, following the subdivision of the large “Woodstock” estate formerly owned by Dr Johansen of Motueka and managed by Gavin Strachan, Tom and Ida bought a block of land on Greenhill Road which became their farmstead, “Glenburnie”. This was right next to the five acre retirement property belonging to John Cornwall and Penelope (nee Wallis) McGaveston, known then as “Rathgar” and today the site of the third Ngatimoti School, built in 1954. Around the same time Frank and Catherine "Kate" (nee Perham) Waghorn became near neighbours to the Strachans. Their farm was on the flats between the Motueka Valley Highway and the Motueka River, opposite Ngatimoti School on the corner of Greenhill Road.

Members of Frank Waghorn’s family were amongst the earliest European settlers at Little Akaloa on Banks Peninsula in Canterbury. His great-uncle Arthur Waghorn arrived at Lyttelton in 1850 on the “Randolph”, one of the First Four Ships. He was joined by his brother David (Frank’s grandfather), who came out on the “Sir Edward Paget” with his family in 1856. Before moving north, Frank Waghorn worked as a bushman in the Ashley Gorge area near Oxford, North Canterbury, where his wife’s brother Richard Frederick Perham had a sawmilling business. In 1904 Richard Perham became partner in a major timber-milling operation known as Perham, Larsen & Co., based in the Rangitikei and later bought out by Francis Carter. It was eventually incorporated into the firm Carter, Holt, Harvey.

After running his own portable sawmill at Pangatotara for a time, Frank Waghorn became involved in many construction, roading and bridge-building projects in the Motueka district. From 1911 to 1913 he was employed as foreman on the Ngatimoti Peninsula Bridge build.²³ It got off to a shaky start in September 1911, becoming a suspension bridge by default after floodwaters swept down the Motueka River and demolished the new central pier, watched in shock by Kate Waghorn from the window of her dairy.

Believed to be Hector Guy's Aunt Ida (Mrs Thomas Strachan) at her Ngatimoti home, "Glenburnie", with Green Hill in the background. uy Collection/Nelson Provincial Museum, ref. 315198

The subject of Ida Strachan's anxious query was Frank and Kate’s oldest son Frank George Waghorn Jnr who was born in Christchurch on 3 April 1893, but grew up at Ngatimoti and attended the local school. Formerly living in Blackball, Westland, and working for the Blackball Coal Company as a miner and seaman on colliers operating out of Westport, he was serving as a private at Gallipoli with the 3rd Reinforcements, Canterbury Infantry Battalion, when Hector wrote his reply. Unfortunately Frank Jnr, who was wounded in action at Gallipoli on 6 June 1915, died as a result two days later on 8 June 1915 while being transported to Malta on the Hospital Ship “Sicilia”.²⁴ He is also commemorated at the Ngatimoti War Memorial and in Turkey at the Lone Pine Memorial on the Gallipoli Peninsula. A younger brother, Arthur, served during the war as well, but survived to return home. The two Ngatimoti Waghorn brothers are listed among the large contingent of Little Akaloa Waghorn cousins who also served during the First World War.²⁵

A hundred years on, Hector Guy's postcard now has a new home - it is safe in the archives of the Nelson Provincial Museum, where researchers and descendants of the families associated with it will be able to access it should they wish to do so.

Note

The action of which news had, to Hector's surprise, already reached home was probably the Second Battle of Krithia, 5-8 May 1915, a fruitless operation which cost the Allies 6,500 men, 800 of them New Zealanders. The 12th (Nelson) Company was in the vanguard of a charge on 8 May, and suffered several losses. Its commanding officer, Major Cyprian Brereton, received serious head injuries during this action and was evacuated from Gallipoli, first to Alexandria and then to the Royal Free Hospital in London, England. He was still recovering there when he married Daisy Guy in August 1915.

I watched the 12th Nelson Company make an advance over open country called the Daisy Patch. There was absolutely no cover for them. They lost their commanding officer and several men were casualties. Our turn to go across came next and we went over the top in good order. At once we were greeted with a terrible fusillade of rifle and machine gun fire, which was deadly. Eye witness account, Walter (Bill) Leadley, Canterbury Infantry Battalion.²⁶

2016 (updated Aug 2020)

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