TE NUPEPA O TE TAIRAWHITI SATURDAY-SUNDAY, APRIL 24-25, 2021 HOME-DELIVERED $1.90, RETAIL $2.70 PAGES 6-7, 11, 12 INSIDE TODAY BLACKED OUT COVID-19 ROCKET LAB ■ ‘Very high-risk country’ category introduced PAYLOAD DETAILS ■ NZ-Western Aust. bubble bursts HEAVILY REDACTED ■ India desperate for oxygen supplies ■ Japan imposes ‘emergency orders’ PAGE 3 LEST WE FORGET: The 1500 headstones and burial plaques of war veterans interred at the Taruheru Cemetery will be adorned with poppies again for Anzac Day tomorrow. RSA manager David Sly (pictured) and volunteers have gone around the numerous plots distributing the emblems ahead of the day of commemoration. Big crowds are expected tomorrow at the numerous services across Gisborne, the East Coast and Wairoa, including Gisborne’s dawn service at which Campion College student and RSA Anzac Day speech contest winner Bella Fitzharris will give the address. More on Anzac Day on pages 2, 4 and 10. Picture by Liam Clayton Call for change to Litter Act to combat ‘fly-tippers’ by Alice Angeloni authorities more tools to deal repercussions because everyone with “fly-tippers”. knows they’re never going to TRASH ILLEGAL dumping is In situations where the get a fine.” rife in Gisborne and across council can prove who Councils spent thousands of New Zealand as ratepayers dumped the rubbish, they dollars on fly-tipping last year, constantly foot the bill for want perpetrators to pay the with some issuing no fines at waste abandoned on beaches, removal cost without having all. roadsides, to go through a court Gisborne District Council parks and prosecution. spent $87,000 clearing illegal city streets. Cr Kerry Worsnop, rubbish in 2020. It made a But local who brought the fraction of that cost back from TALKS authorities issue to the council 11 fines of $400. have few table this week, The cost of clearing illegal options after acknowledged some rubbish in Gisborne was down clearing people were fly- significantly from 2018 when trailer-loads of rubbish, tipping because they couldn’t the council spent $179,000. including mattresses and afford council dump fees, but Wellington City Council broken TVs, Gisborne district said that wasn’t always the estimated illegal dumping councillors say. case. cost $200,000 a year but a They can either slap “There are also people spokeswoman said it didn’t someone with a $400 fine and dumping building waste — issue any fines last year, largely hope it gets paid or take the there are people who are not because of its educational perpetrator to court. acting responsibly in our region approach and “three-tier Gisborne councillors are and should know better,” she warning system”. calling for changes to the said. Litter Act 1979 to give local “At the moment there are no CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 ILLEGAL DUMPING: Examples of fly-tipping like this in Ingram Road are costing Gisborne District Council thousands of dollars a year. Last year clearing illegal rubbish cost the council $87,000 and it recovered around $4400 of that cost in fines. Herald file picture GISBORNE RUATORIA WAIROA Local News ...... 1-5 Opinion ..............11 Business ...... 18-19 Television ....W9-11 Births & Deaths ...4 World............ 12-15 Racing ................22 Sport ............ 29-32 TOMORROW National ...6-10, 20-21 Farming ........ 16-17 Classifieds ... 23-27 Weather .............31 977 1175467004 2 NEWS The Gisborne Herald • Saturday, April 24, 2021 STORIES OF VALOUR ANZAC Day is the day to worked in the power room packing “A friend wrote from New Zealand the army on the ground.” Zealand and overseas. officially honour the country’s explosives into grenades you were and said,‘why don’t you come out One aircraft was hit by machine-gun Frank went on to work as a simulator servicemen and women from all paid a lot more money, but they had to here? You get free passage as an fire after it accidentally crossed the pilot at Air New Zealand but the desire conflicts, not just the two world shower after their shifts and their skin ex-servicewoman’. border but no crew were injured. to fly remained. wars. went yellow.” “It sounded exciting. My friend and Frank also served in Korat, Thailand, He went to Germany to train on the Since 2015, Ryman Healthcare Pam worked in a huge factory for I thought, ‘let’s give it a go’. We could supplying Americans serving in the Dornier 328 before training pilots in has honoured the servicemen much longer hours than she was always come back.” Vietnam War. Papua New Guinea. and women among its retirement accustomed to, earned good money He later become an RNZAF instructor Living his dream, he said, left him village residents by telling their and met many new friends. FRANK ROACH and a VIP Squadron pilot flying in New with many special memories. stories. “I loved it. But I had been really Three Gisborne residents of frightened of the Japanese threat living FRANK Roach’s boyhood dream of Kiri Te Kanawa Retirement on the East Coast. wanting to fly came true. Village — Pam Lewis, Kathleen “VJ Day was absolutely marvellous. The Hawke’s Bay-born man served Burke and Frank Roach — Everyone was on the street.” for 22 years in the air force which feature in Ryman’s 2019 Stories Pam said women were asked to stay included flying Bristol Freighters of Valour publication. in Wellington after the war as the city during the Indonesia–Malaysia Margot Boock, who was short of office workers. Confrontation, flying supplies in interviewed, wrote and took “We had our choice of jobs. I enjoyed during the Vietnam War, helping out photographs for the 2016, 2017 it down there and I had relatives I could after the Mt Erebus DC10 disaster, and 2018 editions, said the book board with.” and working at Air New Zealand for was becoming so popular with “Women really came into their own 19 years. residents and families that she after the war.” Frank entered the workforce via a decided to enlist the support Pam chose to work for Government bank as his father was not keen on of three additional writers, Life insurance company and later his son becoming a pilot. including one in Australia. moved to Auckland. Just 18 months later, Frank signed Last year, the publication “But I knew I would always come up for the Royal New Zealand Air was renamed Stories of Valour back to Gisborne.” Force and trained as a pilot. to reflect the era in which He was always happy to serve some of the residents had KATHLEEN BURKE overseas. His attitude was that he was served, including the Malayan trained to do that. Emergency, Korea, The WORKING as a “land girl” or in a Frank got engaged on a Friday in Malaysian Confrontation and factory didn’t appeal to Kathleen Burke 1965. Vietnam. as she considered how to do “her bit” “On the Monday, the boss said to The 2021 book , released to during World War 2. me, ‘I have a posting to Singapore in coincide with Anzac Day, is 188 The Tunbridge Wells-based two weeks’. pages and features 67 Ryman Englishwoman decided to volunteer as “I told him I had just got engaged Healthcare residents, including there were “not many options unless and he asked me if I could get married some from Australia. you are qualified, so it was better to in a fortnight? It is sent to every retirement volunteer”. “I got married and then left for village, libraries and RSAs She joined up as a WAAF (Women’s Singapore for two years.” throughout New Zealand. Auxiliary Air Force Women) serving as Frank was based in Kuching, The book can also be viewed an aircraftwoman, second class. Malaysia, for two weeks before on the issuu.com website by Kathleen spent two months learning returning to Singapore for four weeks. typing stories of valour into the how to march and salute. “It was peaceful doing sorties first FRANK ROACH website’s search at the top of the She hated it so much she thing in the morning, flying Bristol page volunteered to train as a teleprinter Freighters with supplies to support These are the stories of the operator. three Gisborne residents in the “You got up in the morning, had a 2021 book. big mug of tea and a piece of bread PAMELA LEWIS KATHLEEN BURKE with margarine. Then it was off to work PAM LEWIS — from 6am to 12.30pm. “In the afternoons we studied. BORN and bred in Gisborne, “We lived in barracks — 12 of us to a Pam Lewis worked at The Gisborne room — and we slept on bunks. Herald for five years before moving to “You were totally immersed in Wellington to make her contribution to uniform. the war effort. “We had flat black shoes, grey “We volunteered because we knew stockings and service underwear we we were going to be called up anyway.” called ‘blackouts’. She worked for the Ford munitions “The first night my feet were frozen, factory in Lower Hutt during World War so I tied knots in a jumper to keep my 2. feet warm. Like so many women around the “You couldn’t get a water bottle as world, she was in a workforce once the rubber was needed (for the war dominated by men who were now in the effort).” military forces. Kathleen served as a WAAF for six One of Pam’s job was to put fuses on years. 25-pound shells. Her training allowed her to get a “Our work was regularly checked and job with Cable and Wireless (a British if we did 10,000 and one was wrong, we telecommunications company) in had to do them all over again.