At noon on Saturday the bell at Mudgee's St John's Anglican Church tolled 75 times to mark the number of years since the end of WWII in the Pacific - but if you listened closely there was another ringing out.
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That came from a bell that had been on board HMAS Napier, which was present at the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender in Tokyo Bay . And how it ended up in Mudgee for a such a significant occasion is its own story of serendipity.
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Around 20 years ago, Fr David Craig honorary associate priest at St Jonn's, was working for the Mission to Seafarers in England and had been called to their head office in London for a meeting with the director. There he noticed the bell being used as a doorstop.
"All I could see was 'N-a-p-i' and I knew that it was the bell from the Napier - because my father served on the ship and was on it when the treaty was signed," Fr Craig said. "And it was about three months after he'd died."
After the ship had been scrapped, its namesake family declined the offer to take the bell and it wound up in the hands of the Mission to Seafarers, and he said the director believed "it's been here for donkey's years as far as I know". After explaining his interest in the item, Fr Craig made them an offer.
His initial bid of £50 wasn't enough, but £90 sealed the deal. And after constructing the timber stand himself and adding a new rope, the historic piece would eventually make its way to Australia upon his return to the country and thus onto Mudgee.
"You know it's incredible, if you tried to find a bell off a certain ship it'd never happen - forget about it. But I almost tripped over the thing," he laughed.
