My father Cliff loved an audience, and his grandchildren proved to be better listeners than me. Dad and I certainly enjoyed a good argument — more I’m sure than those around us — but as his son I found sitting and listening to him harder than they did.
Fortunately he didn’t just talk about his life, he wrote about it, vividly and entertainingly. He wanted to share his stories, and this is my belated attempt to help him do so.
His own efforts — hand-written, laboriously typed by his wife Dorothy, and distributed in a ring-binder — weren’t always well received. Sometimes his binders came back with pages removed by offended readers, and I don’t know that I blame them. Dad wasn’t one to leave any doubt about his opinions, and not all were complimentary.
Cliff wrote in particular about his experiences on farms as a kid in the Great Depression and as a Signalman in North Africa, especially in the battles of Sidi Resegh and El Alamein and their aftermaths.
Apart from that he left lengthy notes, mainly about his wartime experiences, his family background, his childhood in Lancashire and New Zealand, and coal mining in Hikurangi. I’ve used those to flesh out what he’s written.
He also wanted to share his letters home to Dorothy during the war, and I’ve used those to add to the story. It would have been better with her letters to read alongside his, but they’re lost. However Mum did write charmingly — in my biased opinion — about what seems to have been a magical childhood in rural Northland, New Zealand, which I’ve included alongside Dad’s very different experiences.
In the main I’ve edited Cliff’s own writing lightly, first by changing names for the reason mentioned, secondly by omitting a little of the “you don’t know how lucky you are”. Most of us will realise how lucky we are soon enough, I think!
Beyond that, I’ve tightened the narrative a bit from time to time, woven in disconnected fragments that Dad has tossed in, and added occasional explanatory notes where he’s assumed his readers will understand things that fifty — or a hundred — years later they probably won’t. I’ve also divided some of the stories into more manageable chunks and added titles in the interests of readability.
To be clear, I did quite a bit of this editing more than twenty years ago — the text typed laboriously into a Macintosh by me before character-recognition made life a bit easier. Mum and Dad read, approved, printed and shared my efforts, so I don’t feel too bad about taking these liberties.
If you read and enjoy these stories you can be sure you have his posthumous gratitude. Mine too.
~ Ian Baugh 2024