BOER WAR RELIC

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19137, 5 October 1936, Page 4

BOER WAR RELIC

1 RAILWAY STATION BELL i RETURNED TO S. AFRICA " The old railway station hell of Kroonstad, South Africa, which was carried off during the Boer War by a party of New Zealanders, and which .for several years summoned members of the Timaru branch of the South African War Veterans' Association to their places at the annual reunion, has arrived back in South Africa and is now in possession of the railway authorities, states the Timaru Herald. Mr. H. C. Thompson, secretary of the Timaru Association, visited the Union two years ago. The Railway Administration was told about the bell and the Timaru veterans willingly consented to its return. It has arrived in the Union and was included in the railway exhibit at the Empire Exhibition, after which it was placed in a class case on the platform of Kroonstad station.

A boxing match was Hie cause of the removal of the bell many years ago. Mr. Thompson's contingent touched at Kroonstad during the war and the soldiers were busy watching a thrilling boxing bout between an English lieutenant and one of the burghers from the Kroonstad Commando. The only way to iirevent the train departing with the match unfinished was to hide the station bell. Subsequently it found a resting-place in Timaru.