Tuesday, 25 September 2018 - 12:47pm

Project Gravestone – Remembrance in action

2 min read

News article photos (1 items)

gwy

As Police Remembrance Day nears, the daughter of an officer slain on duty is embarking on a project to ensure our fallen colleagues are honoured where they lie.

Gwyneth Macdonald, who was six months old when her father Detective Sergeant Neville Power was killed, has appealed for volunteers to help where graves of police officers slain on duty are in need of attention.

After a Facebook appeal, volunteers have come forward to visit most of the graves, and tidy them up where necessary, on Saturday 29 September, Remembrance Day.

Neville Power was shot dead alongside Detective Inspector Wallace Chalmers on 6 January 1963 in the Waitakere Ranges. The pair are buried in neighbouring graves at Purewa Cemetery, Auckland.

power

Detective Sergeant Neville Power's grave.

Alongside them is Constable Bryan Schultz, who was shot dead a month later in Lower Hutt; and Detective Inspector Archie Tate, who in 1964 reportedly killed himself after being affected by cases he worked on.

Gwyneth - pictured above at the grave of Constable Neil McLeod, the first New Zealand Police officer slain on duty, at Waikumete Cemetery - tends the four Purewa graves. She says the idea for Project Gravestone came to her on one of her regular visits to her father’s grave.

“I go on 6 January and 29 September every year, and sit and have a beer with Dad,” she says. “I was thinking ‘I’m doing this for the four boys in Purewa, looking after the graves and laying flowers, but what about the other graves around the country?’

“I know wonderful family members still take great care of some of the graves but some of the more historic ones are in need of attention. Time passes, people move on and graves get left behind.”

Gwyneth – whose daughter Amber is a PST constable based in Wellington – contacted Rowan Carroll, Director of the New Zealand Police Museum, for help in locating the resting places of the slain officers.

She then appealed for support through the Ten 7 Buddies Facebook page and was overwhelmed by the response.

“All of a sudden I had wonderful people from around the country saying they’ll go to these grave sites,” she says. “It was a fantastic response.”

She says volunteers are expected to approach graves with sensitivity and respect the wishes of families, where they are known.

On Saturday she will be checking on graves in the company of fellow members of the local Community Patrol.

She says she hopes visiting a fallen officer’s grave will become an annual Remembrance Day event nationwide.

“I don’t want this to be just for this year,” she says. “I’d like to think that in 50 years’ time, when I’m no longer around, Project Gravestone will still be going on.”

If you would like to know more about Project Gravestone, you can contact Gwyneth at projectgravestone@gmail.com.