During World War I, a young Southland girl knitted a scarf to send to our soldiers on the front lines.
Out of the hundreds of thousands of parcels sent from New Zealand, Violet Cloughley's scarf ended up in the hands of her own brother in France.
Auckland community advocate Colleen Brown has turned this extraordinary real-life story into the children's book Violets Scarf - to be released on ANZAC day.
Photo: Aotearoa Books
Colleen was visiting Riverton's Te Hikoi museum when Violet Cloughley appeared in a video of elderly residents talking about the old days.
"Up popped Violet and she told this story about this scarf. I was just gobsmacked by this story and what were the odds but also I thought it was lovely that this museum has picked this up but this is a story for the whole country, this is a story that needs to be told."
With the number of packages sent from New Zealand during WWI - around 250,000 in 1916 - it's "mind-boggling" that Violet Cloughley's scarf ended up in the hands of her own brother George, Colleen says.
The family lived on a dairy farm outside of Riverton and George was one of three brothers who served in the war overseas.
When the Red Cross visited Violet's school and requested the children knit an item for "some soldier far away from home'' in Gallipoli, she got to work.
Her scarf - tagged with 'Gift for soldier knitted by Violet Cloughley, aged eight years, Riverton School' - arrived after the Gallipoli campaign, so was redirected to England, then to France where a lot of Kiwi soldiers were based.
Photo: Aotearoa Books
'Driver' George Cloughley was one, taking teams of horses up and down from the front lines carrying goods and often wounded soldiers.
When Violet's package arrived in France in June or July of 1916 and was thrown out of a wagon, George randomly caught it.
The original scarf was destroyed in a shed fire, though the tag was kept safe and is now in Dunedin's Hocken Library.
George's daughter Evelyn and Violet's daughter Judith are still alive. Her great-niece Sue Walker told Stuff that learning to knit a scarf by the time you're eight has become a Cloughley family tradition.
Colleen says she gets "huge joy" from the way Emma Lay's illustrations bring to life the Cloughley family and Riverton area in Violet's Scarf.
"It's just so New Zealand … it's a beautiful story."
