Bolam-Smith, representative of the sister city group, Christchurch Kurashiki Sister City Committee, met Abe in 2014 when he visited the Kahikatea Earthquake Memorial Sculpture in the Transitional Cathedral.
The 28 Japanese students who died in the collapse of the CTV building were the largest number of foreign citizens killed in the disaster.
Abe flew from Auckland for the memorial, driving a convoy of 22 cars, including bodyguards. In the cathedral he and his wife met Bolam-Smith and the then Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Lynda Patterson.
A small group, including Bolam-Smith, operating under “lockdown” security measures, honored all victims of the Christchurch earthquake by placing a pohutukawa twig on the Kahikatea sculpture and saying prayers for the dead.
“I offered Prime Minister Abe and his wife a twig each and gave them the opportunity to pray for his people, which he did very kindly. And so did his wife.”
Bolam-Smith, a business owner who says he brought the first sushi to Christchurch, has been promoting cross-cultural ties between Japan and the city with the committee for 30 years.
He has been to Japan more than 70 times, first on an overseas trip to research technology for the Christchurch Star.
During that visit he met his wife Junko and he has loved the country ever since.
He said Abe’s murder was a shock, especially since Japan is so peaceful.
“He was very friendly and very courteous and over the years, in his second term as Prime Minister.
Abe san has been a part of my Japanese life for a very long time. And for that to happen, it was hard to believe when my wife said he had been shot.”
Abe’s act of commemoration, nearly a decade ago, continues at the cathedral every February 22, with the placing of a basket of pohutukawa at the base of the Kahikatea sculpture.
Bolam-Smith worked with embassy officials and the Japanese community, including relatives, to commission the sculpture after the 2011 earthquake.
The memorial was first displayed in Christ’s College Chapel in 2012, on the first anniversary of the earthquake.
It was the first time that bereaved Japanese relatives gathered in Christchurch.
“The Kahikatea tree grows in the swampy ground and they normally grow in clumps,” Bolam-Smith said.
“Their roots are intertwined and very often their branches are intertwined to give them stability in the wind. That represented the parents coming together and getting strength from each other.
“And the peak at the top of the statue represents, in Maori culture, the ghosts depart from the highest point, the Mt Cook ice cap and the prayers – the ghosts depart through the purity of water in Japan.”
The grieving Japanese parents asked if an identical statue could be made for them at home.
Bolam-Smith and other members of the Christchurch Kurashiki Sister City Committee went back to work and had a “twin” installed at Toyoma College of Foreign Languages in central Japan.
The language academy lost 12 students in the collapse of the CTV building. Christchurch has a permanent population of about 3,000 Japanese.
-By Tim Fulton