Media Release Friends of Sherwood Arboretum. (The Local Bulletin December 2017)

A remarkable family tree

A former POW, who once helped save his fellow soldiers from malnutrition, has been fondly remembered as one of Sherwood Arboretum’s generous ‘green thumbs’.

Four generations of the Arvier family, including wife Alison, 90, and great-grandchildren, Lucy and Emily (pictured from left) joined Dale Arvidsson, Curator of Brisbane Botanic Gardens, recently to plant a specimen tree to honour Maurie Arvier.

Maurie, who passed away in 1996, certainly would have appreciated Dale’s choice of a Bull Kauri, one of Queensland’s spectacular rainforest giants.

Maurie’s daughter, Robyn pieced together her Dad’s remarkable wartime story, including his jottings made as a POW in miniscule handwriting on fragments of paper, to write her book Caesar’s Ghost.

Robyn recalled her Dad’s skills as a marksman at Brisbane Grammar School in the 1930s and his inevitable enlistment with an artillery regiment in the AIF.

At the age of just 22, Captain Maurie Arvier joined some 15,000 fellow Australians in wartime captivity after the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in February 1942.

Maurie put his love of botany to life-saving use in ‘prison gardens’ in Borneo to help his fellow soldiers fend off starvation during three and a half years of brutal captivity.

A founding member of the Friends of Sherwood Arboretum Association (FOSA), he worked tirelessly to plant and care for new trees in the Arboretum and identify and place new labels on the growing collection of Australian native trees.

A skilled agronomist, Maurie worked with the volunteers of the former Lions Club of Brisbane – Sherwood between 1979 and 1984 to create the John Herbert Memorial Vista, today a favourite spot for enjoying sunset views over the Arboretum’s green canopy.

Maurie could often be seen with his ladder replacing missing Arboretum tree labels or spreading numerous seed pods on the home driveway after bush trips with Alison.

For more information, please email FOSA at info@sherwoodarboretum.com.au or call 3278 6525.

 

image captions

Maurie (right) at artillery training in 1939

Maurie adding Arboretum tree labels in 1987.