Work in progress
Previous | Contents | Next Cliff’s diary entries petered out after he got back from leave in Alex but the letters to Dorothy continued — 150 pages over three months. On the 15th July he had to give up on a letter when a rowdy argument got too distracting, but he tried again next day in Padre Taylor’s…
Previous | Contents | Next We’ve spent a long time on the people and places Cliff encountered in uniform, his experiences in battle and the long months between. How the war changed him, and all the men arriving back in Alex in June ’43. What’s barely been touched on is the loneliness. This is taken from two long letters…
Previous | Contents | Next § The men who arrived back at Maadi in June 1943 were victorious but war weary. War weary and often resentful. Cliff put together an album of wartime photos, but it peters out after a few pictures he took on leave in Alexandria after the trek back from Tunisia. He wrote in it, “Sick…
Previous | Contents | Next Written partly in the first person by Cliff, the rest in the third by me ~ Ian After the war he often said that he’d served with all the Battalions except the 28th (Maori). Those rotations meant, he reckoned, that he”d missed out on the deep and close personal relationships that formed…
Previous | Contents | Next Written partly in the first person by Cliff, the rest in the third by me ~ Ian § He’d written to Dorothy twice in October. His first letter, dated the 2nd, was while on leave in Alex. His mood was downbeat. A family friend had died in action and the McCarrolls…
Previous | Contents | Next Fast forward to late September and the entire 5th Brigade was heading out to what became known as the Kaponga Box, South West of Alamein, where they’d be digging in fortifications that would become an important part of the defensive line the following year. § October was devoted to yet more training, including on…
Previous | Contents | Next James (Sonny) After Angus was demobilised he went to work for Sonny, and to begin with business was good. “Heather was just born and things were going well,” Angus writes, “when for some reason Sonny decided to sell up and buy another place in the Balham markets”. This was much closer to the…
Previous | Contents | Next Wartime service Angus’s first job was in a drawing office with a heating and ventilation engineer in Kingsway, London, but after some eighteen months he decided to join the Royal Air Force. “This was accomplished by buying six months extra National Health Stamps to falsely increase my age, and after a medical…
Previous | Contents | Next After that peculiar yet vivid memory of meeting his grandfather in the “wee Turkish hat” as a three year old, Angus’s next memory was when he was six — “making scooters and riding the South London roads with brother Douglas and friends”. His brother James (“Sonny” from now on) gave…
Previous | Contents | Next Assisi, and only two days to go before we head home. The six bottles of wine to absorb into my luggage have been making me think about packing, but then the thought arises that I might never see this again — better wait ’til the sun sets. I don’t rhapsodise…