GRAVE OF AUCKLANDER

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19886, 13 March 1939, Page 4

GRAVE OF AUCKLANDER

PIHA FIRE MYSTERY EXPLANATION BY BROTHER SERVICE IN ORE AT WAR (Pfsr Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. Mr. C. B. Shine, of Auckland, a brother of the late Patrick Henry Shine, was interviewed on Saturday following the court case in which James Arthur Talbot was charged with improperly interfering with the grave of Mr. Patrick Shine, in the Waikumete cemetery on or about February 10. The case was the outcome of inquiries set afoot by the fire at Piha in the early morning of February 12 and in which it was at first reported that Gordon Thomas McKay had been burned to death'. It is now suggested that the human remains found in the debris of the fire at Piha were those of Mr. Patrick Shine.

In the interview on Saturday Mr. Shine said that although his brother Patrick served with the Australian Expeditionary Forces during the Great War he was not an Australian. He was born in Auckland and about 25 years ago went to Australia, where he enlisted and served with the 34th Battalion of Australian Forces.

Mr. Patrick Shine was badly gassed and blown up in the big battle at Villers-Bretonneux and ever afterwards suffered greatly from shellshock, said Mr. Shine. About 10 years ago he came back to Auckland, where he lived until his death last month. He was in business in Ponsonby, where he had a shop for some years, during which time he engaged in furniture dealing, but after he gave up this business because of ill-health two years ago he was almost an invalid. He was 54 years of age and entered the Auckland. Hospital only three weeks prior to his death.