Today in History

1941 NZ pilot saves Scottish village

In May 2007 the residents of the Scottish village of Cowie gathered to unveil a memorial to Pilot Officer Carlyle Everiss – a New Zealand fighter pilot whose heroic actions saved the lives of countless villagers during the Second World War.

Carlyle Gray Everiss was born in Gisborne on 3 December 1914. Following the outbreak of the Second World War he enlisted in the Royal New Zealand Air Force and began pilot training in January 1941. After gaining his pilot’s wings in Canada, Everiss was sent to the United Kingdom and posted to No. 58 Operational Training Unit at Grangemouth in Scotland.

Everiss and another pilot were returning from an air combat exercise on 2 October 1941 when the engine of his Spitfire stalled over the mining village of Cowie in Stirlingshire. With the crippled plane heading straight for a tightly packed row of houses, Everiss refused to bail out and made a desperate attempt to gain altitude. While he managed to clear the village his plane was thrown into an uncontrollable tailspin and crashed into railway sidings at the nearby mine. Villagers were able to pull Everiss from the burning wreckage but the young pilot died shortly afterwards and was buried in Grangemouth (Grandsable) Cemetery.

Despite his hero status amongst the inhabitants of Cowie little was known about Everiss until local resident, John Craig, travelled to New Zealand in 1979 and tracked down Everiss’s brother-in-law. He lent Craig a photograph of Pilot Officer Everiss in uniform and a painting was commissioned based on this picture. The portrait, entitled ‘Carlisle Everiss – The Face of Courage’, was hung in the clubrooms of the Cowie Bowling Club, which stand near the original crash site.

On 19 May 2007 a memorial commemorating the young pilot’s sacrifice was unveiled in Cowie. The memorial – a bronze bust of Everiss atop a rock plinth – was paid for by local residents who raised £12,000 to fund the project.

Image: Carlyle Everiss - The Face of Courage (NZPA)

1986 'Slice of Heaven' hits No. 1

Written for the movie Footrot Flats, which was based on the iconic New Zealand cartoon series, Dave Dobbyn's hit single featured reggae band Herbs singing a cappella. It topped the charts for eight weeks.

Released two months before the film, 'Slice of Heaven' became synonymous with it and was named Song of the Year at the 1986 New Zealand Music Awards. In 2001 the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) invited its members and an academy to vote for what they believed to be New Zealand's top songs of all time. 'Slice of Heaven' was voted number seven on this list. That same year Dave Dobbyn received a rare lifetime achievement award from the New Zealand recording industry recognising almost 30 years as a musician and songwriter with bands such as Th'Dudes and DD Smash.

Footrot Flats was the work of cartoonist Murray Ball. The popular newspaper cartoon series featured the daily adventures of typical New Zealand farm characters, including Dog the sheepdog, his owner Wal Footrot, and their neighbour, Cooch Windgrass. Footrot Flats was New Zealand’s first full-length animated feature film.