Writing home.

April 25th is Anzac Day. This the day when New Zealanders and Australians commemorate our soldiers who served in previous wars.This year is the 100th anniversary of our troops landing at Gallipoli in Turkey and many extra events are taking place. Tonight I will be in the nearby town of Pukekohe reading extracts of the dairies my father wrote during the war.

This image is of soldier Number 33403 writing home from Egypt. In the top corner of the image are his sister, his mother and his fiancee. After the war his fiancee was to become his wife and my mother.Dad joined the NZ Army in 1940 and was initially stationed in Egypt before seeing active service in North Africa. He was captured in Libya in November 1941 and was to remain in prison camps [mostly in Italy] until the war ended in 1945.The dairies he kept are very special as it had to be done secretly and always hidden from the guards. His time as a P.O.W. was something he seldom talked about later so the dairies have helped us to understand what he went through.