'I have done one thing few men have done,” says Tauranga identity Trevor Blaker reflecting on the 36,500 days or 100 years he has engaged with this planet.
'I married my wife twice.”
It wasn't just an affirmation of his vows. It was one of life's little quirks. He can chuckle about it now.
Trevor also got blown up by Hitler. 'I came home not so good.” There's a word for it – shellshock. The bombs that didn't damage or destroy the body, unhinged the mind. Not many soldiers would talk about it.
'I got bowled over, a shell landed pretty close. Scars everywhere,” says Trevor, patting his arms and legs.
He was on first-name terms with Charles Hazlitt Upham, VC and Bar, who earned the Victoria Cross twice during the Second World War. 'I didn't get one,” jokes Trevor.
He admired Upham immensely. 'Fearless man. Always had a revolver strapped to his leg – like a cowboy. And a lovely man.”
Trevor and Charlie were at Ruweisat Ridge in Egypt with the 20th Battalion. 'We took the ridge and the British tanks were meant to come in and consolidate. They didn't arrive but the bloody Germans did.”
They had to fight their way back out. 'The Germans didn't like bayonets.” That's when he was injured and captured. 'Dragged all over Europe, right up on the Russian border at one stage, bloody cold up there.”
And if he had to nominate a defining time in his life, it was this prisoner of war being released from Stalag 357 at Fallingbostel in Germany. 'Getting released in the big push, the Allies invading Europe, when their tanks sailed through the German defences – ah yes, a good feeling! And we were going home.”
Even at home Trevor was no stranger to hardship. He was just a teenager when the Great Depression claimed his family home, their orchard, their livelihood and destroyed his parent's marriage. 'My father, a relatively young man, died from a broken heart.”
He deserves to feel a bit persecuted, a bit cheated. But time mends and he's lively, chipper with a youthful glint and a dash of charm, even though he's just a few days off being once round the clock.
'He's a lovely boy,” says the receptionist at the Copper Beech retirement village in the Avenues when The Weekend Sun arrived. 'He's our favourite.” Trevor puts that into perspective. 'That's because I am about the only bloke here.”
When this bloke arrived home to a transit camp behind the Tauranga Domain in 1945 he joined the Senior Citizens Club and took up indoor bowls and motorbikes – strange bedfellows.
'There wasn't as much traffic in those days and motorbikes didn't go as fast, so they weren't as dangerous.” This soldier was immune to danger anyhow. After touring the country motorbikes became history, but 72 years later he's still indoor bowling with the Senior Citizens Club. He's even had a couple of rolls up this week.
'It's meant a lot to me. A lot of people wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't the companionship of the Senior Citizens Club. If I didn't go I would be sitting here staring at the walls all day.”
And therein, he thinks, lies a danger for older folk. 'A lot of country people do it. Sell up, come to town and sit and gaze out the window for six months before dropping dead.”
Indoor bowls and 500 three or four times a week at Senior Citizens keeps Trevor ticking. It's also where he learned to forgive and forget. 'A very good friend of mine is German, was in the Hitler Youth. She's a New Zealander now, thinks New Zealand is the best country in the world.” So that was then and this is now.
Of course the big unanswered question is why centenarian Trevor Blaker married his wife twice? It's a story of romance that soured and blossomed again.
Her nickname was ‘Islla' – when she was little, Ella would say: 'Ise Ella” when announcing herself. It sounded like ‘Islla' and it stuck.
'She was lovely,” says Trevor. They had four children but after 20 years the painter and paper-hanger-turned-orchardist separated from his wife. 'Don't know why. It happened a bit. People going in different directions.”
Both remarried but eventually lost their partners – so they hitched up again, and remarried about eight years ago. 'It was meant to be. I still loved her and we realised how silly we had been.” Trevor eventually lost his Islla four years ago.
Now Trevor's apartment is a museum and he is the main treasure. The walls are adorned with photographs of exploits, families and friends and times gone. A man can pack a lot of living into 100 years.
'I haven't moved far. I was born in Greerton, moved as far as 14th Avenue, [I] love Tauranga and will die here.” But there is life yet. The old boy literally springs from his recliner to see The Weekend Sun out just as another visitor arrives.
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