Penguin’s name will live on in Akaroa

Press, 2 December 1985, Page 17

Penguin’s name will live on in Akaroa

A new subdivision in Akaroa will be named after one of the town’s best-loved characters, Pompey the penguin. Pompey has long since disappeared from his adopted Peninsula home, but the naming of the new subdivision will ensure the penguin is not forgotten in Akaroa.

Pompey’s Place is a new 14-lot section on a former camping ground site at the corner of Rue Balguerie and Rue Cachalot.

The Akaroa County Council approved the name of the subdivision after a recommendation by the Akaroa Community Council. Pompey the penguin was a yellow-eyed penguin that was found in Fisherman’s Bay by an Akaroa resident, Mr Louis Vangione, in February, 1904. In a memoir he wrote in October, 1940, Mr Vangione recorded that a fortnight before he had found a female penguin of the same species on the beach at Long Bay with its leg badly smashed. He had put her out of her misery. Mr Vangione speculated that she had been Pompey’s mate and that Pompey refused to leave Banks Peninsula waters at the usual time of year without his companion. Mr Vangione took PomEfrom Fisherman’s Bay k with him to Akaroa, where attempts to feed him on mussels and fish failed. Pompey became so thin and miserable-looking that Mr Vangione let him go.

A week later, apparently still looking for his mate, he reappeared at Fisherman’s Bay. He eventually followed Mr Vangione back to his timber yard. The yard was to be Pompey’s home for 13 years, and he became well known on his walks through the streets of Akaroa.

It is thought that the penguin was named after Pompey’s Pillar, a stack of rock off the eastern end of Banks Peninsula. One former Akaroa resident, Mrs Betty Waller (nee. Wilkins), was with her school friend, Mrs Rana Barker (nee Hall) in July, 1914, when a photographer took a photograph of them with Pompey. Mrs Waller recalled that “everyone stood aside for Pompey.’’ Mrs Waller, now aged 85, thinks she and her former

schoolfriend were about 11 when the photograph was taken.

The photographer was Miss Jessie Buckland, who was well known on Banks Peninsula at that time.

With an eye for business, Mrs Vangione also had Pompey’s image imprinted on quality china.

Mrs Waller said the china was of “very high quality” and was made in England. Different versions are given of Pompey’s death, he would often disappear for periods and be seen in distant bays before returning to Akaroa. One day he disappeared and did not return.