A LIVING WAR MEMORIAL.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 August 1921, Page 4

A LIVING WAR MEMORIAL.

The lion W. 11. Triggs, M.L.C., writing from Leura, New South Wales, on July 1-1 th, says:— Here, in the heart of the beautiful scenery for which the Blue Mountains district is famous, I have found a form ot war memorial which seems worthy of consideration in New Zealand in places where the residents have not liven able to make up their minds as to the best method of keeping green the memories of their young men who laid down their lives in the Great War. It consists of an avenue of trees, each hearing the name of a Leura soldier who has “gone West.” It is appropriately called “Lone Pine Avenue,” and is laid put, not in straight lines, but in graceful curves, one of which sweeps round a solitary pine, which not only stands for the name of the avenue, hut also a« a general memorial for the brave lads who did so well in the war as to give cause for lasting pride and gratitude to the district from which they came. At the entrance to the avenue is a stone gateway, the design of which is very effective in its simplicity. V bronze tablet hears the following inscription : “This entrance was erected, and the Avenue planted, by the citizens of' Leura in honour of the Leura men who served in the Great War, 1914-18, and whose names are inscribed on the pane! opposite. ‘Not oiue or twice in our fair island story, The path of duty was the way to glory.’ ” At present the trees, which are nearly all deciduous, are hut young saplings, each carefully protected by a strong fence, and bearing a number for purposes of record, as well as the name of the soldier in whose memory it has been planted. It needs no great effort of imagination to picture the time when these shall have grown up into a stately grove of remembrances, and the children of to-day, walking up ami down in its gracious shade, will tell their children of the men ol Leura who did their duty so well in the greatest crisis of the Empire.