“……… So, the Lady was a bit too tall to fit under the Coathanger. She measured 181 feet (55 meters) from the waterline to the top of one of the three stacks. At least it would give the Navy boys something to do, ferrying some troops and supplies out to the Grey Ghost, anchored off Bradley Head in Port Jackson. She ……….was about to set sail from Sydney Harbor ……………………

On board one of those ferries steaming out past Pinchgut Is. (aka Fort Denison) was an LAA Gunner NX13945, also known as Alan Taunton (my father aka “Big Al “and “the old man”). At the grand age of 20 years having lied about his birthday (just a small discrepancy of 2 years) he had enlisted in the army just 5 weeks before. He would have preferred the Airforce, but as he had to leave school at 13 years of age, he was deemed uneducated and therefore unsuitable for the cutting-edge technology of the De Havilland Tigermoths.

Via this chapter, I go back in time of my family’s history and subsequently my own early years. Yep, I’m in that picture above. At the end it will show the reader a critical juncture of how one’s life changes.

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