Gildings Auctioneers/Supplied
Supportive quilted messages from Otautau to wounded soldiers in World War 1.
The historic quilt sent by Otautau townsfolk to New Zealand soldiers convalescing in England during World War 1 has been returned after the town’s RSA prevailed in a bidding war in a spine tingling late-night phone auction.
News that the quilt would be auctioned by Gildings Auctioneers in Leicestershire on June 7 prompted the RSA’s members to agree to each contribute to a collective bid.
It proved a fraught night for the appointed representatives, club president Andre Bekhuis, Royden and Faye Brown, when the promised phone call from the auctioneers had failed to come through several hours after the early-morning auction began.
Alarmed that they had been forgotten, Faye was reaching for the phone to check when it rang.
She was so startled, Bekhuis said, “she almost threw the phone through the ceiling’’.
After barely 30 seconds it was over, he said.
It was a case of “bid-bid-bid-warning-sold!’’.
The trio were ecstatic.
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The quilt was estimated to sell for about $200 to $400 NZ dollars but the amount it sold for remains undisclosed.
“I’ve been sworn to secrecy,’’ Bekhuis said.
But he did confirm it was within the limit the club members had set.
Gildings Auctioneers/Supplied
The Otautau Quilt is back home thanks to the local RSA.
Otautau residents were over the moon at the news – and the result was also welcomed on the other side of the world where the local Harborough Mail reported that the quilt would be returning to “the remote New Zealand town’’ it had come from.
Auction house director Will Gilding said: “We’re delighted that the Otautau Quilt is returning home after over a century here in the UK.’’
The quilt was fashioned by residents who paid a small fee for squares of calico and red embroidery cotton, which they used to embroider names, pictures and phrases.
Among the images are a dog beating a drum, a British bulldog with a flag, a rabbit, the greeting kia ora, and a floral garland above a pair of (rather large) shoes by the phrase “we miss the patter of your little feet’’.
The assembled quilt was initially displayed in Otautau, then sent to a military hospital near London.
Its whereabouts were unknown back in New Zealand until 1978 when a Mr M F Ambler from Scotland wrote to The Southland Times about it, and the resulting flurry of letters from people who had either embroidered a square, or remembered others doing so, had also been collected and were part of the auctioned lot.
The quilt, along with about 25 letters had arrived in Otautau last Wednesday and considering its age and delicacy, it was in fantastic condition, Bekhuis said.
After an in-house preview the following day, involving members of the RSA, Otautau Museum and Southland District Council staff, the quilt would now be properly framed and prepared for public display at yet-to-be-confirmed locations.
A commemorative event would be held at the museum.
Many of the club members recognised names on the quilt and many other locals were “chomping at the bit’’ to see it, Bekhuis said.
