Cambridge Brass Band bugler Doug Rose playing The Last Post outside Pukeatua War Memorial Church, newly-fitted out with its bell.
A new church bell blessed during Sunday’s Remembrance Day service at the Pukeatua War Memorial Church has strong links to Tamahere.
Church committee chairman Margaret Main said the history of the bell is tied to St Stephen’s Anglican Church in Tamahere.
When the church was rebuilt after the 1970 St Stephens fire, her father-in-law Alfred Main was given a replacement bell from Morrinsville. However, the original bell was recast and subsequently mounted in St Stephens, and the smaller replacement bell went into storage on the Main family farm in Tamahere. When they moved to Pukeatua, the bell came too.
“During lockdown, I was at the church when we had a piper playing for Anzac Day, and I thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a bell to ring?” she said.
“In 2021, when we sold the farm, I approached St Stephens to see if we could donate the replacement bell to the church here at Pukeatua, and they agreed.”
