Vale Terrace in the suburb of Wigram, Christchurch

Vale Tce – Named after Noel Lancelot St Elmo Vale (1898- 1981). Vale was a motor engineer of Riccarton. He graduated from the Canterbury Flying School on 7 May 1918. In the Wigram Aerodrome subdivision by Ngāi Tahu Property Ltd where the street names are either of aircraft or taken from the list of the first 100 students at the Flight School established by Sir Henry Wigram in 1917. Named in 2012.A reasonable amount of information from the library website but there is far more to this man. I spend ages researching ancestry website and Papers Past. Information from Great Britain Royal Aero Certificate has his address as Waimari Rd in Christchurch. He was born in Christchurch 26th December 1898 and his occupation was motor engineer. Trained in a Caudron Biplane and he received his certificate on 7th May 1918. He married Muriel Ellen Steel in June 1921 at t Marys Church in Addington. Sadly she died 31st May 1935 aged 36 years. He remarried in 1936 to Coral Burns Elliott but I couldn’t find out very much about Coral but she was possibly born in the UK and was possibly a dental nurse. Unable to find out when she died or where buried. Noel died on 3rd October 1981 and he is buried in Linwood. He was a cars salesman and was fairly well known in Christchurch. There are frequent mentions in Papers Past and mostly for driving offences. June 1917 for riding a motor cycle without lights. In 1934 he was fined for driving while intoxicated and also in fined for similar offence in 1935. In 1937 he was fined for overtaking on an intersection. He was descibed as a salesman of 78 Forfar St. The best would be the article in the Truth in October 1930 where he tried passing a tram on the wrong side of the tram and ended up wedged under the tram. He claimed that he had been driving for 16 years and never had an accident before. There was a headline of 8 whiskies but not drunk. Two police doctors say that they found him intoxicated but Noel was acquitted. Headline said Prominent aviator acquitted on charge of insobriety in motor car. He was described as a motor salesman for a well known city firm and prominent aviator and a popular man about town. The same article mentions Noel suffering from nerves after a plane crash a year earlier where he had to avoid children in a park. So many articles about the plane crash with some interesting headlines. Apparently Noel had been doing some stunts in the plane and the engine stopped mid air. He couldn’t land in the park as children were playing there so he ended up crash landing in a nearby ploughed paddock. It was Barrington Park where he was unable to land because of the children. The plane was a write off but he escaped with minor injuries. The street itself has 14 properties built between 2015 to 2018. A couple of interesting styles but the street is boring compared to the man it was named after. I had huge fun researching Noel Vale and I thought that I had a photo of his gravestone but searched my photos but couldn’t find it. With such an unusual name I would have expected that I would have noticed the gravestone but Linwood cemetery is in such a bad state of repair.