They served Eltham

RICHARD WOODD richard.woodd@tnl.co.nz - Taranaki Saturday, 28 July 2007
Eltham is mourning the loss of two of its community stalwarts.
Dorothy Lillian Nicholls died on July 19, a month short of her 91st birthday and her close friend Lawrence Stephen (Curly) Murray a day later aged 87.
Red Cross voluntary work was a common thread in their lives.
Mrs Nicholls became a Red Cross nurse in 1936, she was an Eltham branch life member and was awarded a medal for 60 years' service last year. She was awarded the NZ Order of Merit in 1996.
"The Red Cross was her life," says Jeanette Mann, the former Eltham branch secretary, now living in Southland.
During the Vietnam War, Mrs Nicholls and her husband Herbert Eckroyd (Roy) personally delivered four woolpacks of toys, clothes and medicines to a children's hospital in Saigon. Such flights were known as "teddy bear runs".
The Nicholls flew with the cargo in an RNZAF Hercules, strapped into armchairs for the long flight. Mrs Nicholls had been patron of the Eltham Plunket and Horticultural societies and was a national judge for the Taranaki Rose Society.
Her husband was the town chemist.
Mr Murray started as an apprentice joiner in 1935. He bought the N. G. Tucker Joinery business in 1957, with Ilay Stanners as a partner, and renamed it Eltham Building Supplies. It is still being operated by his two sons, Donald and Ian.
He was a member of the Taranaki Masonic Trust and his Red Cross service included repairing all wheelchairs loaned out by the Red Cross in Taranaki.
He joined the Eltham Volunteer Fire Brigade in 1938 and was chief officer 1949-63.