Events Calendar

The Bulford Kiwi - The Kiwi We Left Behind

Colleen Brown

The Bulford Kiwi is the intriguing story of a 130m-tall Kiwi, carved into a hill in southern England in 1919 by New Zealand troops waiting to go home at the end of World War One.

Thursday 31 May

5.30pm

Davis Theatre, Watt street

Free entry (koha appreciated)

Complementary wine and juice available

This is the little-known story from the end of World War One when the New Zealand troops waited months in Sling Camp in southern England for a ship to take them home.  Rioting in the camp led to plans to keep troops busy by cutting a giant Kiwi into the chalk hill behind the camp.

Originally carved to keep troops busy, the kiwi became an emblem to be proud of and a cherished link to home.  For many of those involved in its construction, and later its resurrection, the Bulford Kiwi came to represent all those servicemen who had passed through Sling Camp, especially those who would never go home.  It was a memorial built by soldiers, not governments, for themselves and their mates.

The British Government made the Bulford Kiwi a scheduled monument in 2017 to honour the New Zealand soldiers who played a significant role in the Battle of Messines, fought in June 1917 in Belgium.

Colleen Brown is a well known local body politician, serving on the Manukay City Council for nine years and is currently a Counties Manukau District Health Board member.  She is an educationalist and disability advocate and was awarded the MNZM in 2000 for her contributions to education, community and disability.  In this book she has used the investigative skills she developed writing her Masters' thesis to research and write about this aspect of New Zealand's history that has been largely ignored.

Colleen lives with her family in Hillpark, one of Auckland's remaining urban forests.