Reunited: the Anzac and his family

Manawatu Standard Monday, 23 April 2007


MURRAY WILSON/Manawatu Standard
CROSSING THE DIVIDE: Kaithi Craig with some the richly decorated letters she receives from her long-lost uncle Tom. The Palmerston North woman was reunited with her uncle when she spotted him at the opening of the NZ War Memorial in Hyde Park in London.

Fate can beat all odds, writes Mervyn Dykes, in this story of a miracle in Hyde Park.
Imagine spending years looking for a lost uncle and godfather, then, quite by chance, sitting down close to him in Hyde Park, London. What are the odds? If you saw it in a movie, wouldn't you say, "That's stretching coincidence too far".
But even though she could only see the old soldier's back and his head in half-profile, Kathi Craig's memories arced across a gap of 50 years and her heart began to race.
"It was almost like my mother tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'That's him'," she says from her home in Palmerston North.
She and husband Malcolm Hopwood had gone to London for the opening of the New Zealand War Memorial in Hyde Park. At the ceremony they were seated in row V in the middle of 300 guests and behind them was a barricade holding back about 2000 "standing guests".
"The weather was terribly cold and bleak and we had to be seated two hours in advance," she says, with a shiver. "But I was looking forward to seeing the Queen and being in the presence of the other royals.
"Suddenly I had the most amazing feeling that someone I knew was seated nearby. It was unbelievable. My heart was pounding. I looked across to the right, and slightly in front on row U there was someone who reminded me of my family."
She couldn't get a clear look at the old soldier, but at the same time did not want to take her eyes off him.
"He was a very old gentleman with a breast full of medals. I could not see his face, but there was another man sitting with him who was using a camera.
"I said to Malcolm, 'I think that's Uncle Tom.'
"He said, 'Darling, that is impossible. Think of the odds. You don't really think that among all these thousands of people you can see your Uncle Tom?' "
Oh yes, she did.
"Perhaps I should go over."
"Don't."
"But I have nothing to lose."
"Just wait a while."
Ms Craig waited, but her eyes were boring into the back of the old soldier's head so intently, she was surprised he didn't turn.
At the same time, memories were unspooling. She recalled how as a little girl the Craig family's raucous door bell sounded in the wee hours one night just after World War II.
"That bell was so loud I used to be scared of it," she says. "People didn't have much contact in those days and we didn't have a telephone. Anyway, we all woke up and I can remember Dad going to the door and then one of my sisters screaming. 'It's Uncle Tom! It's Uncle Tom!' "
In spite of the hour, his arrival was the signal for a huge party. Thomas Francis Beel was home from the war. Ms Craig remembers at one stage doing a highland fling on the kitchen table.
Alas, Uncle Tom did not stay around for long. Only five years later, he and his homesick English bride returned to England and he passed out of Ms Craig's life, though she did hear years later that his wife had died.
Fast-forward to 2006 and there was Ms Craig, fixated on an old soldier one row in front of her.
Her husband was all logic and reason. The man couldn't be a Kiwi because he was sitting with English veterans and the visiting New Zealand returned servicemen were all in a block up front.
The ceremony began and a Maori concert party began its welcome for the Queen. Ms Craig saw the man lean forward slightly and wipe tears from his eyes. That did it.
"I'm going to see Uncle Tom now!"
But she couldn't. Guests had been told to stay in their seats during the ceremony – and there were security marksmen with rifles on surrounding rooftops.
Wait, Malcolm had said, so wait she did. But as the programme ended and everyone stood for God Save the Queen, Ms Craig saw a paua kiwi flash on the man's lapel. She could not hold back any longer and pushed her way to him.
"Are you my Uncle Tom?"
"Are you my niece Kathleen?" he replied.
"We both cried and hugged. It was amazing."
An angry woman objected to the unseemly behaviour. "The Queen!" she hissed.
"The Queen can wait. This is my uncle and I've not seen him for 50 years," said Kathi.
The woman softened.
"You dear man," she said. "You fought for our country." She gave Tom a kiss and posed for a photograph with him.
After the ceremony, Kathi visited Uncle Tom in Guildford, Surrey, and the years seemed to roll away. It was like being a child again.
Ms Craig learned that Tom's story was as Anzac as they come. He served in Greece, Crete and Egypt. He was wounded counter- attacking an airfield in Crete and evacuated to Alexandria Hospital in Egypt. At one stage, he and his brother Bill were missing in action.
He was captured at Tobruk, Libya, and shipped to a POW camp in Italy, but escaped and spent three months on the run before being recaptured.
This time he was sent to a labour camp in Poland where he worked as a coalminer before again escaping. This time he got out of Poland and made his way across Germany to meet the advancing American troops.
A month before meeting Kathi, Tom caught up with his nephew, Dunedin businessman William Cockerill. Now Kathi and William plan to be part of his 90th birthday celebrations in March, 2008. After all, he is Ms Craig's sole surviving relative from his generation.
Since returning home they have exchanged letters regularly. His come with envelopes decorated so much with images and messages that there is barely room for the address.
"I love you and miss you, says one."
But as endearing as this may be, it is but a pale shadow of the heart-to-heart communications that are still being made.
"It is so wonderful to know that he is there and that he loves me."