Local resident plays at special UK Ceremony

Sergeant Stephen Pilkington playing the Last Post at a ceremony to honour Lord and Lady Freyberg in Surrey, England.

1 October 2007

Local Air Force Band member and International Pacific College lecturer Stephen Pilkington was delighted when he was asked to play the Last Post and Reveille at a ceremony to honour Lord and Lady Freyberg in the United Kingdom.

Sergeant Pilkington (Pohangina Valley, Manawatu) travelled to Britain with a small group of New Zealand Defence Force personnel to take part in the ceremony which was held on Sunday 30 September.

The New Zealand High Commission organised the ceremony which was held at St Martha’s on the Hill church, near Guildford, south of London.

The gravesite had been found in disrepair and after a three-year campaign by Christchurch WWII veteran Earle Crutchley, it has been repaired and cleaned.  A plaque to Lord Bernard Freyberg VC has been erected in the church.

Lord Freyberg is one of our most famous soldiers and military commanders.  He won the Victoria Cross on the Somme in 1916 and went on to command the New Zealand forces in WWII.  He also served as New Zealand’s Governor General from 1946 to 1952.

The ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Helen Clark; Lord Valerian, 3rd Baron Freyberg (grandson of Freyberg), Corporal Willie Apiata VC and invited guests.

The Prime Minister laid a special wreath on Lady Freyberg’s grave.  Lady Freyberg is well known for her welfare work with the New Zealand troops during WWII, for which she was awarded a GBE in 1943.

Sergeant Pilkington has been playing the bugle since he was a child and joined the New Zealand Air Force’s territorial unit in 1980.  He is a member of the Ohakea Brass Band and has played the Last Post and Reveille at over 100 ceremonies.

He says that he feels privileged to have taken part in such an honourable occasion.

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