STOLEN CHAMPAGNE

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 April 1927, Page 5

STOLEN CHAMPAGNE

AN ANZAC SOUVENIR.

(Special to “Star.”) AUCKLAND, March 14. Thereby hangs a tale. There is usually a story associated with everything, and there is a story with a pathetic side associated with a recent burglary at the premises of L. Marks and Coy., Chancery Street, where the visitors with glee drank a bottle of champagne found on the premises and consumed the biscuits which the staff had procured for morning teas. In itself the hottie of champagne was not a serious loss, but had the burglars known its history even they might have pondered for it was a link with an incident of over 12 years ago, and to Mr L. Marks it recalled poignant memories of Anzac. A little over 12 years ago, a young Aucklander, the son of a former magistrate and a personal friend of Mr Marks, enlisted in the Auckland Mounted Rifles. Mr Marks made him a present of a .saddle and bridle, which had been specially made. When the soldier came to say goodbye to Mr Marks, he brought into the latter’s office a bottle of champagne for the occasion, Mr Marks persuaded ' his friend not to open the bottle, and instead the two men adjourned to a nearby hotel and celebrated the farewell there. “We,will leave the champagne until you come back from the war, then we will celebrate your safe return,” Mr Marks suggested, and so it was decided to leave it until the soldier returned, but early in 191.6 the young soldier was killed in action. Ever since then the unopened bottle of champagne remained in a cupboard in Mr Marks’s office, but ev’bry Anzac Day he would carefully remove it and reverently wipe the dust away. It brought back to him a flood of memories, a. young’friend and a New r Zealander, who now sleeps his last long sleep beneath an alien sky, on the shores of Gallipoli.