Hamilton Talk: ‘The Soldiers and the Olive Tree: An ANZAC Story’

Hamilton Talk: ‘The Soldiers and the Olive Tree: An ANZAC Story’

Annette Bainbridge

21 March 2024, Chartwell Room, Hamilton Gardens

Talk begins at 5:15pm, $5 entry

Abstract:

This presentation covers the untold story of the New Zealand soldiers of World War Two and their emotional connection with the olive trees of the Mediterranean. Throughout the Syrian, Greek and Cretan campaigns, the New Zealand soldiers were exposed to a landscape covered with olive trees and groves. These trees provided shelter and cover from enemy fire as well as linking the ordinary soldiers with the symbolic role that the trees had played throughout history: from being a biblical sign of peace to representing victory for the soldiers of classical Greece and Rome. The New Zealanders established a deep attachment to this tree which would go on to see the olive grow in popularity as a nursery plant for New Zealand gardens in the post-war period and take its place in numerous war memorial gardens dedicated to the fallen of World War Two.

Biography:

Annette Bainbridge is an environmental and garden historian who has presented here in New Zealand, and overseas in Australia and the United Kingdom on 19th and 20th century history. She has contributed articles to the New Zealand Journal of History and the Australian Garden History Society’s regular journal. She holds a Masters in garden history from the University of Waikato, and is currently completing a PhD on the role of colonial women in New Zealand’s environmental history through Victoria University of Wellington. She is a member of the Garden History Research Foundation based at the Hamilton Gardens.