We’ve been lucky enough to do a fair amount of travel over the years, Heather and I. When I say lucky, I mean that much of the time we could …
1993 — A day round the old Jakarta docks
Sunda Kelapa 1992, Peter Connolly photos § This wasn’t our first visit to Indonesia. We’d spent a couple of days in Bangkok on a round the world adventure in 1980, …
Previous |Contents | NextSunday 6 September. A spectacular dog fight this morning. Eight planes down today, four of ours and four German. I walked over to inspect some wreckage. The plane …
Previous |Contents | What we generally think of as the Battle of El Alamein, the turning point of the war in North Africa, was in fact the second battle. The first …
Previous |Contents | Next Montgomery had taken command of 8th Army on 7 August, and things were changing. § Wednesday 19th August
. Most of our Base Wallahs have been roped in …
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Previous |Contents | Next The New Zealand Division had been transferred to Syria and Lebanon in part to recover from the hammering it had taken in Operation Crusader. After the action …
Infantry exercises in the desert
Previous |Contents | Next Cliff described some 6th Brigade training manoeuvres in the Syrian desert to give “some idea of life with the Infantry”. He wrote this in the 1990s. …
Previous |Contents | Next Cliff’s next letter was dated 25 May, ten days later, and he was writing from Syria. They’d traveled by bus to Haifa, then by train to Damascus. …
Previous | Contents | Next By mid-May Cliff was in Palestine. They’d travelled there by train in goods vans and cattle trucks, a stop-and-start journey and a good deal of …
Previous | Contents | Next One patient in particular I can never forget. I spent two nights with him in that tent. He’d been in a tank that caught fire …
Previous | Contents | Next On the 5th December, 10 days after my last real meal, there was a church service, long to be remembered by those who took part …
Previous | Contents | Next It was now Thursday, 27 November. I was woken before daylight with another cup of cocoa. We were then loaded, this time on stretchers, on …
Previous | Contents | Next On 24 November 1941, when this story begins, we were attached to 21 Battalion, which had been in action at Beir El Gubi. We’d had …
Previous | Contents | Next Some of the following is in the first person, written by Cliff, some in the third person, written by me based on his notes. ~ …
Previous | Contents | Next Some of the following is in the first person, written by Cliff, the rest, in the third person, by me ~ Ian Out of hospital The …
Previous | Contents A few days later Cliff wrote from the Signal School, N.Z.E.F., Middle East Forces. They were at 2NZEF’s main depot and training camp near Maadi, about 8 …
Previous | Contents | Next The next stop was Ceylon — Sri Lanka — where the Mauritania berthed for over and week and the men had four days shore leave in …
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, …
Previous | Contents | Next Cliff sent Dorothy a postcard, postmarked Wellington, as they were about to move out into the stream. They were “very, very lucky” — six of them …
| Contents | Next “Div Sigs” — Divisional Signals — was a specialist unit of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force, whose members were seconded to the various Brigades, Battalions …
Where to begin I’m not trying to make a virtue of writing about whatever comes to mind, whether my university angst, boatbuilding in the Solomons or our day on the …
The Coal Miner’s Son John and Annie Baugh left England in 1923 to work the Hikurangi coal mines with a bunch of other Lancs. Their son Cliff wrote vividly and …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Previous | Contents | Next In September 1939 Hitler invaded Poland. According to Cliff’s diary, by the time he moved to Paparoa in March 1940 6,000 New Zealand men had …
Bible Class and the Post Office
Previous | Contents | Next In early 1936 Cliff started attending Bible classes, mainly because some of his friends were. Working on farms had meant few opportunities for socialising, and …
1936-41: God, Dorothy and the coming war
Contents | Next 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 …
Previous | Contents | “I’ve seen Dad working like that, with the suction end of a pump under his feet pumping gallons of water as he used a pneumatic drill …
Previous | Contents | Next From Cliff’s notes ~ Ian. There was a large winch to haul skips of coal up the long underground drive — the tunnel that led …
The mine again, and a social life
Previous | Contents | Next After Cliff was fired by the miserable WH on January 7th 1936 he moved back home to his parents and started his second stint at …
Coal dust, hard work and hospital
Previous | Contents | Next These pages, which cover Cliff’s coal mining stories, are partly written by him, and partly by me, in the third person, based on his notes. …
Previous | Contents | Next Notes to give context to Cliff’s coal mining stories ~Ian. Coal was discovered in Waro (North of Hikurangi) and Kamo (North of Whangarei) in the …
| Contents | Next Our initial forays into Australia, the States and UK were very positive. We had a revolutionary product and people liked us. They also liked the fact that — even …
Blog posts by date published
Previous | Contents | Next This was May 2000. Mobile networks, roaming arrangements and phone charges have improved a bit since then! The iPhone was still 6-1/2 years or so away. ~ …
Previous | Contents | October 2001 It used to be the Austro-Hungarians we had to thank for keeping the Ottomans out of Europe but for now it’s the EU, while they consider Turkey’s …
Previous | Contents | Next October 2021. We only had 2-3 days to spend with Heather’s relatives in the UK on this trip. I was a bit worried about meeting Uncle Bert, the BOAC …
Previous | Contents | Next October 2021. It’s not often that your flight plans align with a world-shaking geopolitical event, but we managed it in September 2001. Our plan — after joining the Queensberry …
Previous | Contents | Next March 2001. This was Queensberry’s first WPPI trade show in Las Vegas. ~Ian Well, the Trade Show is over and we’re back in the LAX Departure Lounge. It feels …
Previous | Contents | As we drove east across northern New York State the trees were in full leaf. Leaving Quebec, further north, everything had just been greening up, as the buds …
When I die I wanna go to Schwartz’s
Previous | Contents | NextI wrote my last 2000 despatches back in sunny Los Angeles. We’d spent the last four weeks driving through Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and New England. Having flown back …
| Contents | Next Some time in late 1999 we decided it was time to go international. Ever since Stephen had set up the Queensberry website in 1994 we’d fielded enquiries from …
Previous | Contents | Next Before Canada, a little segue into food. It’s fair to say that sometimes we don’t so much sight-see when we travel as progress from restaurant to restaurant. …
A whine lover’s tour of SW USA
Previous | Contents | Next Those of you with a literary bent will not be surprised to hear that I was reading Tom Wolfe at the time. Others will notice that it’s …
Previous | Contents | Next I first wrote home a few days into the trip. When I re-read it now I recall how struck we were by South California — it was just like …
Thanks for coming This site contains my father’s stories and my own. We’ve both enjoyed writing — My Dad, the coal miner’s son, about life as an immigrant Kiwi working …