The dressmaker and the hidden Kiwi soldier

It was a love story that overcame war, ceaseless fear, and a world of distance — a relationship that should never have survived. As a book about Kiwi soldier Peter Blunden and Greek seamstress Thalia Christidou is released, Mike White discovers the extraordinary bravery that brought them together.

The blade was blunt and basic. But it did the job. As the prison train laboured through the Greek countryside, Kiwi soldier Peter Blunden pulled out the saw he’d stolen and strapped to his leg, and began attacking the wooden carriage door.

Soon, one of the other soldiers crammed into the wagon with him reached through the hole Blunden had cut and slid open the bolt. And then they began jumping.

The 10 soldiers, en route to a German prisoner-of-war camp after being captured during the calamitous fall of Crete in May 1941, had drawn lots to see who would go first – those leaping early had the best chance of escape. Blunden drew number nine, and by the time he and his mate, Patrick Minogue, tumbled into the dirt and darkness, the German guards had already begun shooting.

Somehow, the pair evaded the bullets and dogs and searchlights.

And with nothing more than a handful of Greek drachmas Blunden had stolen from a German guard, and a rudimentary sense of direction, they disappeared into the night.

Blunden was 28, a musterer on a Canterbury station before he’d volunteered for the army when war broke out two years before. He’d been wounded in Crete, captured in a cave by a German soldier who couldn't pull the trigger on him, and was one of thousands of soldiers imprisoned by the Germans, who now occupied Greece.

Minogue knew a woman who was part of the Greek resistance in the port city Thessaloniki, and, travelling by night, the pair eventually made it to her front door.

She was Tasoula Paschilidou, “Mrs Tasoula”, a dressmaker who, with her teenage son, Thanasis, had harboured Allied soldiers fleeing the Nazis. Blunden was secreted in her spare room, consigned to silence when Mrs Tasoula’s seamstresses arrived for work each day, allowed out only in the morning and evening.

But one day, Mrs Tasoula’s youngest assistant, 17-year-old Thalia Christidou, arrived early and glimpsed Blunden.

From that time on, she was sworn to secrecy about Blunden’s presence, becoming part of the small team who protected him from the German Gestapo and SS.

The onset of winter, and escape networks that had been infiltrated by the Germans, meant Blunden had to stay hidden in Thessaloniki.

But he used his time well, becoming fluent in Greek, and gradually venturing out, disguised as a local.

There were close shaves and lucky saves. Once, he was stopped at a German checkpoint and had to be rescued by a watermelon farmer who claimed Blunden was his idiot son.

Another time, he went to the movies only to find himself seated between two German soldiers, who asked him for a light. As Blunden obliged, he worried the Germans would suddenly become suspicious why a Greek man was watching an English film with German subtitles.

Several times, German soldiers came to Mrs Tasoula’s house, but on each occasion, quick thinking from Thalia and Mrs Tasoula prevented Blunden’s discovery.

Eventually, in September 1942, after 10 months in hiding, Blunden left Thessaloniki – and Thalia, who he’d fallen for, but had been too shy and scared to admit.

Two days later, German officers raided Mrs Tasoula’s house after being tipped off she was hiding an enemy soldier.

They dragged Mrs Tasoula and her son away, sending them to a prison camp.

Weeks later, after a trumped-up trial, Mrs Tasoula was sentenced to death for harbouring Blunden.

Meanwhile, Blunden was smuggled out of Greece on a boat that eventually made it to Turkey, despite a run-in with Germans on the way. He was jailed in Turkey because he’d lost his passport, but eventually made his way through Syria, Palestine, and into Egypt where he rejoined the New Zealand forces in November 1942.

After being awarded the Military Medal for escaping, he retrained as a tank gunner, and was sent to Italy where he saw more battle action, receiving further decorations and promotions.

By the time Blunden was sent home to New Zealand in January 1945, he’d learnt two pieces of devastating news: his younger brother Neil, a pilot, had been killed over the North Sea when his plane crashed during an attack on the German battleship Tirpitz; and Mrs Tasoula and her son, Thanasis, had been captured and exiled to prison camps.

Over the next three years, they spent time in four camps, each harsher and worse than the previous. Through fortune and foul-up, Mrs Tasoula’s death sentence was never carried out.

But by the time she was rescued from the Burgau concentration camp by American troops, she weighed little more than 30 kilograms.

Back home, Blunden struggled to fit back into New Zealand life, and struggled to forget the immense bravery and generosity of the Greeks.

Then, out of the blue, he received a letter from Mrs Tasoula, letting him know she and Thanasis – and Thalia – had survived the war.

Despite overwhelming doubt, despite never having even admitted his feelings to her, and despite three years having passed since his escape from Thessaloniki, Blunden wrote back - and proposed to Thalia.

In July 1946, Thalia, now 21, left her family and friends in Greece and began her journey to the other side of the world.

Three months later, she sailed into Wellington harbour on the RMS Rangitata, wondering if “Petros”, the mysterious man from her past, would be there to meet her.

Peter Blunden was waiting dockside, a tall man in a hat, scanning the ship’s rails for the woman he’d remembered and clung to in quiet moments, for more than four years.

When Wellington author Doug Gold opens the sliding doors to his apartment’s balcony, he looks over the same harbour and wharf where Peter and Thalia were reunited. In 2019, the former radio entrepreneur had a surprise bestseller with The Note Through the Wire, the story of his wife’s parents, who also met during WWII.

When Gold learnt about Peter and Thalia’s story, he set about trying to learn as much as he could of their lives.

Peter had died in 2005, aged 91, followed by Thalia two years later. But their four children all survived, so he emailed their youngest daughter, Xantheppe.

“And she wrote a fairly terse email back, saying, ‘How did you know about this story?’” remembers Gold.

“But that quickly passed, and she’s been brilliant to deal with.”

Their parents didn’t speak much of the war when the children were growing up.

They were private, humble, aware that others had gone through remarkable wartime experiences too. It wasn’t until their son, Neil, visited Greece in 1974, and met Mrs Tasoula, that he learnt the true nature of his parents’ meeting.

“I can remember sitting in the house in Enou Place, this small humble woman next to Thanasis, and, as he was the only one that spoke English, telling me in detail their story. It was like listening to something out of a war movie. I had tears streaming down my face, absolutely gobsmacked.”

Peter eventually typed out a 60-page memoir recounting his war experiences, and Thalia’s journey to New Zealand.

They were married in Greymouth, a month after Thalia arrived, and then had a second wedding, while honeymooning in Wellington, in a Greek Orthodox church, with white wreaths on their heads, and the Greek consul as the best man.

Peter had won a returned serviceman’s ballot for a farm, and broke in a block of stubborn land on Banks Peninsula.

Thalia, who spoke no English when she arrived, struggled to understand why their animals weren’t herded into a yard each night to protect them from wolves and thieves.

Every Sunday, their Port Levy house would be filled with the smell of the incense Thalia would light, along with a small candle beside her bed.

Each night she would tell her children that the moon in the sky had just come from Greece.

Predictably, fitting in to a life so distant to that she’d known, wasn’t straightforward.

Peter would regularly visit the chemist for olive oil, which in those days was sold in small vials for medicinal purposes. Eventually, the chemist quietly asked Peter if he needed to see a doctor, at which point Peter explained it was for his wife’s cooking.

Thalia once made a Greek banquet for friends, only for the guests to struggle, because it had garlic in it.

She learnt English from the local schoolteacher, played golf, bowls, went sailing in the family’s yacht, was a keen gardener, and loved to socialise.

She carried on her dressmaking skills, stitching all the children’s clothes on a treadle machine, and teaching sewing at the local primary school.

Peter taught her to knit, and she spun wool from her flock of black sheep.

Looking back, all her children recognise what an incredible leap of faith their mother took by accepting Peter’s proposal. Shifting to the other side of the world, shifting from a city to remote rural life, overcoming inevitable homesickness.

But they point to Thalia’s resilience and adventurous nature. Adopted as a child, life had already handed her numerous challenges.

She didn’t go home for 30 years.

In 1976, Peter and Thalia finally returned to Greece and Thessaloniki, where they were reunited with Mrs Tasoula and Thanasis.

They visited the bakery owned by Mrs Tasoula’s brother-in-law, Giorgos, who had frequently smuggled bread to the hidden Kiwi soldier.

When Peter walked in, he called out in Greek, “Is your bread fresh?” and Giorgos replied, ‘Who is asking?” then turned to see Peter, before rushing to embrace him, in tears.

Peter also tracked down Yannis, the man who’d helped him escape from Thessaloniki to Turkey. Yannis told Peter he was the first person ever to return to thank them for what they did.

In 2007, all four children travelled to Greece to retrace their parents’ steps, recognising how momentous their war experiences had been, remembering how so many people had helped them, and realising how much could have gone wrong, and prevented Peter and Thalia ever getting together.

Between 1942-48, the New Zealand government sponsored romance on a spectacular scale, with nearly 4000 “war brides”, as Thalia was considered, from 37 countries, being brought here and reunited with Kiwi soldiers.

“But what makes Peter and Thalia so different,” says Doug Gold, “was that they’d never had a relationship in the normal sense of the word.

“They’d had feelings for each other,

unspoken, undeclared. Never kissed.

“And for someone to propose by letter from the other side of the world, and for someone to accept – I thought that was quite remarkable.”

But despite all the barriers and challenges, it worked, Gold says. They were married for 58 years.

At Peter’s funeral, family members dropped camellia petals on his coffin.

Peter used to tell the story of visiting Thalia at St George's Hospital in Christchurch after their first child was born.

He had picked some camellia blooms, but after travelling from Port Levy to Diamond Harbour by horse, catching the ferry to Lyttelton, then a train to Christchurch, and two trams to the hospital, the flowers were so bedraggled, the duty nurse upbraided him.

Gold, 75, says he became emotionally involved in Peter and Thalia’s story, as he researched it.

Part of that included travelling to Greece, and seeing one of the prisons where Mrs Tasoula and Thanasis were held, because they’d hidden Blunden.

“What struck me was the level of courage people have.

“I mean, Mrs Tasoula, for goodness’ sake – she must have known she would get caught, sooner or later. The longer Peter was there and going out – you can’t keep a secret like that, forever.

“And nobody was under any illusions as to what would happen if they got caught – they knew it was a death sentence.

“That sort of courage really staggers me, in terms of how people can put their lives at risk to help someone they’ve never met before, is going to be there for a period of time, then they’ll probably never hear from or see again.”

Peter’s bravery, too, was remarkable, Gold says.

“They’re not necessarily heroes in the traditional sense of the word, but they are heroes in their own right, in the conditions they had to suffer, and the things they had to do, to survive.

“In the case of Peter’s escape – that’s courage that, quite frankly, I don’t think I would have.

“They’re not high-profile commanders or people, but just ordinary people who are stuck in the middle of a terrible war, and do quite extraordinary things.”

Ordinary people, who eventually returned to ordinary lives, with their extraordinary experiences tucked away, often lost, but occasionally saved and celebrated, says Gold.