Work in progress
Previous | Contents | We’d managed to lock our keys in the car at the Cemetery. I decided the easiest way to deal with this was to let Avis worry, so we looked out the local office to explain. Two nice young guys were shutting up for lunch. How could ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Next morning Dad and I woke weary, worn out before the day could lay a finger on us. Although Olympia had died, Dad still wanted to go and find the Russos’ old house at the foot of Trocchio, where he’d been billeted, and look up ... Read more
Well, it wasn’t the smallest car in Italy, which would be very small indeed, but it wasn’t large, and it was certainly bare of most creature comforts. It was also a little wider than it seemed from my (unaccustomed) side of the car, and twice I clipped another vehicle with ... Read more
| Contents | Next Tell the kids also that Dad and I always had a combative relationship, but I’d never been closer to him than this. I can’t remember exactly when we stopped bickering with each other, but this trip was a rather graceless step on the way. Rather graceless on ... Read more
Last Anzac Day my nephew Peter asked me if there was any way he could access his grandfather’s war stories to read to his kids. I had to disappoint him but said I was working at publishing them online. Well, it took the best part of a year but, finally, ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Ten days later Cliff was back in Camp again. “My dear Dorothy,” he wrote. “Hello my dear, how are you now? To be frank with you, I’m as cheerful as a funeral. I miss you terribly, sweetheart. “Thank God that we can at least write to ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Now he was in the Army he was unsure what he’d like to do, assuming he had any choice. It looked like it might be hard to get into Signals — he knew a Postmaster who’d tried and failed. The motor cycle platoon would be interesting ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next There was little more than a year between Cliff’s leaving Hikurangi and his sailing for the Middle East in 2 NZEF. During that year he’d met, fallen in love with and been engaged to nineteen year-old Dorothy McCarroll. In the following chapters I’ve tried, through ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next As a kid I don’t recall Mum ever losing her aura of motherly capability, even though I did eventually come to suspect that Dad wasn’t quite Superman — when he took off his glasses, for example, and his eyes seemed to shrink into his head. ... Read more