The shiny medallions on the relic caught Mrs Ormandy’s eye at the Waitaki Resource Recovery Park recycling shop recently and sparked her intrigue. She purchased the mystery belt with memorabilia attached for $4.
"I bought it mainly because there were two medallions on it. One dated 1904 for a G. Robertson. I haven't yet worked out what that meansyet.
"I believe it's an army money belt. Probably World War 1. Although I don't know.
"Someone’s gone to a bit of bother because all the coins are pre-1936. They’ve drilled holes in pennies and halfpennies and thruppences and hung them on to this army belt."
Also attached to the belt is an Otago Boys’ button, and badges for the Long Range Desert Group, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, the Ancient Order of Foresters, collar pins, and a New Zealand Army medics’ badge, Mrs Ormandy said.
One medal had engraved on the back, "P. Dickel, awarded for the 880 Yards Relay Race at St Bede’s College in 1921".
Mrs Ormandy discovered P. Dickel had excelled in sports at St Bede’s College in Christchurch.
He won the junior championship award not only in the 880 yards, but in eight other categories of track and field in the first annual sports competition held at the college grounds, she said.
A member of the Waitaki Society of Genealogists, Mrs Ormandy discovered P. Dickel was Corporal Henry Percival Dickel, who served in Egypt in WW2, and had a son, Noel Dickel, who was based in Dunedin.
Mr Dickel, now 86, said it was "amazing" when Mrs Ormandy called him to tell him of his father’s memorabilia.
"It was completely out of the blue — I know before the war he was a member of the Scottish Battalion and a quartermaster sergeant but when he went overseas they lost all rank, he became a corporal," he said.
Mr Dickel, who was only 15 when he died, said his father, also known as "Percie", was a grocery store owner in Port Chalmers after the war and died in Dunedin in 1952.
"He never talked a hell of a lot about the war as a lot of people didn't in those days," he said.
With the belt resurfacing over 80 years on from the war, Mrs Ormandy said she would like to know more about where it has been "all this time".
If anyone has any further information they can contact the Waitaki Genealogist Society.
