FOUND ON VELDT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 242, 13 October 1933, Page 5

FOUND ON VELDT.

N.Z. VETERAN'S PIPE.

RETURNED AFTER 32 YEARS,

ECHO OF BOER WAR.

Picked up on the South African Veldt 32 years ago, shortly after hostilities in the Boer War were brought to a close, a pipe belonging to Mr. Colin C. McPhedran, a member of the South Canterbury branch of the South African Veterans' Association, was restored to its owner at the annual reunion of the branch in Timaru last week.

Speaking at tlie conference of the association, which opened in Wellington yesterday, Mr. H. C. Thompson, Timaru delegate, explained that the pipe which had Mr.. McPhedran's number, N.Z. 5613, and a fern engraved on it, was picked up on tho veldt between the Mafeking line, near Vryburg and Elandsfontein, by Mr. Charles Rees, while serving as a trooper with Roberts' Horse in South Africa.

Mr. Rees now resided in Australia, and asked Mr. W. D. Archibald, formerly of the Seventh Australian Light Horse, who was now an officer of the Union Steam Ship Company trading between Australia and Ifew Zealand, to try to find the owner of the pipe or his next-of-kin, said Mr. Thompson.

Mr. F. G. Seddon, secretary of the Veterans' Association at Wanganui, was the first to meet Mr. Archibald, and he received full particulars. The next move was to ask Base Records for the name of the trooper who carried the number on the pipe. Captain C. Bishop, of Wellington, who was handed the information, wrote to Mr. Thompson asking if Mr. Colin Campbell MePhedran, or next-of-kin, was still to ba found in South Canterbury. "We were pleased to report that Mr. MePhedran was a member of our executive, and very much alive," said Mr. Thompson. "It is remarkable that the pipe should have been found on the vast expanse of the veldt, and that it should be a neighbouring 'Aussie' who located it. He held it as a souvenir, and After 32 years, found the pwv.ez,*' iSgS 1