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"War Brides"
by Alice Reeves nee Blunden
My cousin, Peter Blunden, was decorated for bravery in World War 2. He
escaped from the Germans and was hidden, for the rest of the War, under the
floorboards of a home in Greece. He, at that time, met his future wife, Thalia,
who was only a schoolgirl then. He contacted her after the war and she came out
to New Zealand and married him. This is an account of it all, as taken from the book –
"War Brides".
Thalia’s point of view :
I left my home on 14 July 1946 and flew from Salonika to
Athens and stayed at a hotel where other war brides were staying. Fortunately,
there were two other girls from Crete who were travelling with their New Zealand
husbands. I was thankful for this as I was lonely and homesick. We flew from
Athens to Cairo and after a week, we went to the Ismailiya Transit Camp. On 22
September, we took the train to Port Said and boarded the Rangitata for New
Zealand.
In our cabin were seventeen war brides, Italian, Creek and
English, and the boat was full of soldiers returning home. We arrived in
Wellington on 22 October and I saw Peter down on the wharf looking for me. I
waved to him calling him ‘Petro’. He saw me and came nearer and asked me if
I could speak English, I said ‘No’ and said to the other girls I would not
be surprised if he sent me home again.
When Peter came on the boat, it was the first time we had met
in four years.
After I arrived in New Zealand, Peter told me what had
happened to him after he left Mrs Tasonla’s house. Some Greeks helped him
escape to Turkey on a fishing boat, then he travelled through Turkey, Syria,
Israel and onto Egypt where he rejoined his battalion. He was sent home on
furlough and then returned and fought in the Italian Campaign, finally getting
back to New Zealand in 1945. He was awarded the Military Medal for escaping from
a train enroute to a German prison camp, evading capture and returning to his
battalion.
We were married in Greymouth on 22 November 1946 and Peter’s
sister put on a lovely party for us. On our honeymoon in Wellington we were also
married in the Greek Orthodox Church, with white wreaths on our heads and the
Greek consul as the best man. He also put on a lovely party, Greek style, for
us. While we were on our honeymoon, a friend of Peter’s taught me a little
English. Peter won a ballot for a farm at Port Levy, it was a very isolated
place for me after living in a big city. One day Peter said, ‘You have to cook
for the shearers’. I did not even know what a shearer was. Anyway, I made some
Greek biscuits on our coal range. The recipe said to have a teaspoon of ammonia,
which you buy from the chemist. I found some Scrubbs ammonia in the cupboard,
the sort that is used for cleaning, and I used a spoonful of it. Nobody knew the
difference and they ate all the biscuits. When I told Peter later, he couldn’t
believe me.
Peter will always be grateful to the many Greek men, women
and children who risked their lives helping and sheltering him and many other
New Zealand soldiers. I have never seen Peter in uniform, except in the
photograph he sent me after the war to show my parents what he looked like.
Peter had never told me he loved me or given me his address in case the Germans
found it.
I am a naturalised New Zealander now and Peter and I are
retired and living in Diamond Harbour, and our son is on the farm at Port Levy’.
This is a postscript to this account from Peter:
‘I have enjoyed writing this for Thalia, a very brave,
courageous and lovely girl. How she ever found the courage to travel out here
alone, I will never understand. She found the customs and food so different and
the suspicion of foreigners was evident in many cases. However, she managed to
cope with it all and became a very loyal New Zealander.’
Betsy, Peter’s sister, was one of New Zealand’s first
women Alpine Guides at Mount Cook and a champion skier. She, at 86, still plays
18 holes of golf. Janice married Arthur Wallis, big sawmillers on the West
Coast. She is the mother of Tim Wallis, now Sir Wallis, the famous aviator, who
incidentally owns Treble Cone ski-field, the casino in Christchurch, Helicopters
Limited among other enterprises. Janice’s beautiful garden is at Wanaka and is
often featured on Television garden shows. She still, at 87 years of age, does a
lot of her own gardening, going in every evening for her brandy, lime and soda
before settling down to dinner with her wine. She has never dropped her families
gracious-living traits and she regularly travels overseas on Garden Tours.
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