Rotorua, New Zealand,22 October, 2003
Today I met Tini Glover at his home in Gisborne.   What a hard man!  Great fun, wicked sense of humour, but I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him!  I know the Maori are martial people, but Tini has evidently lived his life by deciding whether he trusts people or not, and if he doesn’t, watch out.  His memory was great but he jumped around quite a lot.  One minute he was telling me about some story from the war, the next he was describing some disagreement he’d had nearby over some use of Maori land.  ‘So I grabbed this joker by the neck,’ said Tini, ‘and told him never again to talk to me like that again.  You should have seen him: his eyes were bulging out and everything.  I really could have throttled him.’  So when was this? I asked.  Back in the war.  ‘Ah, no – this was a couple of weeks back.’  I’m going to enjoy writing about him.

Afterwards, I headed back to Rotorua, driving along an almost entirely empty road for a hundred miles or so.  Stunning scenery and all in all, quite an experience.

Auckland, 18 October, 2003
Can’t believe I’m flying out to New Zealand for the second time in one year  – but needs must.  One of the themes I want to cover in both my North Africa and Italy books is that the Allied armies, especially, were a really polyglot force.  Back in July, when I visited Tunisia with my friend Jim, we saw Takrouna where the Maori had had one of their more famous battles.  Jim turned to me then and suggested I should really try and speak to some Maori veterans.  After all, they were all volunteers, for while there had been subscription for white New Zealanders, the Maori had been exempted.  I knew he was right, but finding Maori veterans who would talk to me was no easy matter.  I contacted various museums in New Zealand and eventually was put in touch with Monty Soutar, a young ex-soldier himself – and Maori – and now an academic working on Maori history at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.  He has contacted a number of North Africa and Italy veterans, but obviously for me to interview them I have had to come all the way out here – telephone interviews don’t work – at least not before you have gained someone’s trust and certainly not with Maori who are wary of talking to whites about highly personal matters such as their war experiences.