There are large gaps in Cliff’s story between 1936 and 1940, but I’ve done my best to piece together what’s available. Over those four or five years Dad was improving himself. Always energetic, he started Correspondence School, learned Morse Code and finally got a job in the Post Office — highly desirable, steady, secure employment. There’s a photo of him with his bicycle and in his postman’s uniform, taken from Jack and Annie’s house with the Waro Rocks in the background.
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Cliff wrote about this period in the 1990s, typing it himself from his diaries into an old Macintosh SE that I’d given him along with a dot matrix printer. He never grasped the concept of computer memory, or rather the extent of it, so most days he would write something, print it out and then turn the computer off without saving.
When I visited him and Mum, and saw that he was still doing this I’d repeat my lecture about computer memory, and saving your work, and he’d say, “But surely it must be full up by now.”
It reminds me of myself now — not bothering to comprehend or wanting to engage with aspects of today’s world. I dunno, us old people…
However I still have some of Cliff’s files — in a now-unreadable version of Microsoft word, copied from now-unreadable 4” floppy disks on to my 1990s iMac, and transferred to new machines ever since — but still recoverable using Text Edit with a lot of formatting gobbledegook stirred in with Dad’s words.
And here am I, having learned nothing, saving it all again in 2023 software, and wondering how long that will be recoverable…
In this section, unless indicated differently, I’m writing from Cliff’s abbreviated diary entries in my own voice, as they don’t add up to a narrative and are full of names that mean nothing to me, or almost certainly you. I have retained the original, however, names, dates and all. ~ Ian
Contents
1936–41: God, Dorothy and the coming war
Read the stories in order by clicking NEXT at the bottom of each page, or use these links.
Bible Class and the Post Office
Greater love
Dorothy
Matakana
Military training
Embarkation
At sea
Ceylon
Cairo