Flight of (not-so) Fancy

Mike Bodnar rues his inability to travel in style, but discovers other hidden benefits to long-haul flying...

I recently returned from a month on the other side of the world. 

Well of course you didn't know; I didn't want to make a fuss. Or face abuse for adding to the world's climate woes. Because I didn't go by bicycle, or kayak, and I didn't walk. Train? Tchah! None of those are options when you live in Aotearoa/New Zealand and need to get to the UK, formerly known as Great Britain.

I flew. Obviously not personally - I don't wear tights and a cape - but circumstances dictated that I get there quickly, get some things done, and get back again. 

But let me get one thing straight from the start: I don't like flying. Not because I'm terrified of the aircraft falling out of the sky (I am), or because the carbon footprint of a long-haul flight is damaging to the increasingly-fragile global ecosystem (I know it is, but I refuse to paddle 24,000 miles); No, it's because I can't afford to travel Business Class.

No, seriously, I can't. Not even so-called Premium Economy (which is like like travelling economy but with a marginally less surly attitude from the flight attendants).

Heading for third class check-in

In the end, this is what we pay for when flying internationally: acknowledgement of our social status, with treatment befitting. The more we pay, the nicer we are treated; the less we fork out, the more bottom-feeders we are. The clue is in the tiers: First Class, Business Class, Premium Economy, and - sad wah-wah trumpet FX here - Economy. It's simply, and literally, a class system. Yes, it all ends in tiers. Thank you, I'm here all week.

So, why did I have to go? In a nutshell, we have a property in Surrey that we couldn't sell two years ago due to an incredibly brief and inept tenure by a now-forgotten Tory prime minister called Liz Truss, who within her less-than 50-days in power, managed to crash the British economy. Mortgages suddenly became almost non-existent, lending criteria were tightened, and the property market tanked, taking our chances of selling with it. Instead we had to rent the property out.

Okay, this might seem like a First World Problem, but the truth is, having moved back to New Zealand, we can't afford to buy a property here until our house in England sells. So not only were we paying a mortgage over there, we were forking out for rent here in NZ as well. Something had to be done.

Our property was let without too much trouble, but now the UK tenancy was coming to an end, and it was patently obvious from photos and reports that the tenants had neglected the place for the full twenty months they'd been there. It was not in saleable condition. I needed to go over and fix it up.

Peace of mind

Yes, I can hear you! You're wondering why didn't we just engage tradespeople in England to do the required painting and decorating, the gardening, the general tidying and fixing of things. Because, after some research, it was obviously going to be cheaper for me to go and do it than to pay for workers over there. There's also that intangible: peace of mind - the comfort in knowing a job's been done and done well.

So I got online looking for the cheapest possible flights. If you've ever done this, you'll know how disheartening it can be. Firstly, the nearer you are to when you want to travel, the more expensive the flights are. This is called dynamic pricing (or surge pricing, or demand-based pricing), and is based on a combination of demand and/or desperation. It is basically blackmail. 'Oh, you want to travel next week sir? That'll be twice or three times as much as if you'd booked two months ago. Thank you. Ka-ching!'

Luckily, I did book about two months in advance. Another important thing to consider is how flexible you can be with your travel dates. The more set-in-concrete your plans are, the more it's likely to cost. Some flight search sites show you useful calendars indicating when the cheapest flight options are (I used Webjet, but please note I am not endorsing them as the only or even preferred one).

Then comes the airline you choose. As soon as you go for one of the majors - Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific, Singapore, Emirates, and so forth (this of course depends where you're flying from/to) - you're paying a premium. I was looking for cheapest, not best or award-winning.

I make no apologies...

And, crucially, I also wanted to avoid travelling via the United States. This was because I have posted anti-Trump memes on social media, and I didn't want to be held by ICE, or turned away during a transit stopover just because I might have offended The Orange One. My options were becoming increasingly limited, especially since I didn't want to spend 56 hours getting to the UK. Oh yes, you can find cheap flights, as long as you're prepared to camp out at three or more airports during lengthy stopovers en route.

But all was not lost. I found what I believed to be a reasonably-priced option with a Chinese airline I'd never heard of: Hainan. For the equivalent of £980 return (approx. NZ$2180) - third class of course - I could fly over, be there for a month, and fly back. 

I was tempted, but first I needed to research what other travellers thought of Hainan Airlines. One man said the service was appalling, and he was allowed just one beer on a 10-hour flight, because, as he was told, 'otherwise you might be drunk.' Others said the food was terrible, and that everything came with rice. This didn't put me off particularly; it was a Chinese airline after all, but one alcoholic drink in 10 hours was something of a worry. But others said it was fine, and nearly everyone rated it five stars for cleanliness. There's nothing quite like knowing your plane is spotless as it plunges to earth.

No, not real; just my imagination on fire...

Despite having never heard of the airline, and fearing their planes would be refurbished Tiger Moths, I booked. I also updated my last will and testament, and sent a Photoshopped image of a Chinese plane on fire to friends and family, just to manage their expectations (see pic).

As it happened, I needn't have worried. Everything went according to plan, even smoothly, although the hours spent in transit in China - along with having to fill in visa forms and be processed by immigration (yes, even for transit), was a pain. Because one of the big downsides of some cheap air travel is stopovers and layovers. 

China immigration. Image: Global Times

Hainan Airlines fly from New Zealand to London Heathrow with two stops en route; the first is at their hub on the island of Haikou (for a few hours), followed by an internal flight to Changsha in mainland China (another few hours' stop). At Haikou we all had to collect our baggage and check it in again before continuing - another pain. But this is the price you pay for booking cheap tickets - you have to put up with some inconvenience.

But there was an upside: it turned out there were about forty or fifty of us who were either New Zealanders or Brits, travelling the whole way to London, so naturally we gravitated together at the check-in queues. Two or three of this cohort had done the trip before, so their knowledge and experience was much appreciated, as the airline itself told us very little about what was going on. And even when I was given information, it turned out to be wrong.

The flight from Haikou to Changsha was internal, so it was, technically, a domestic flight, even though it was part of the international journey I'd booked. So, after checking in I was told to go round the corner to the domestic departure gate and security screening area, which I did, only to be turned away and told to go to international departures because I was travelling to London. Off upstairs I trundled, to international departures, only to be turned away again and be told to go back downstairs to domestic. It was turning into a game of Chinese Checkins, only I was losing.

Haikou Meilan International, Terminal 2 Departures. It was a seething mass of humanity when I was there

I found an airport official, a young lady who listened politely and carefully to my dilemma, checked my boarding pass, then engaged Google translate on her phone to tell me to go to international departures. I still had at least three hours before departure so I wasn't losing my cool yet. I equally politely told her phone my story again, and she said I was to follow her. I followed, relieved at last that I was in official hands.

But no. After being given more incorrect information at two other counters, we finally ended up at the first class check-in, and my hopes soared as I thought maybe that she was going to arrange an upgrade by way of compensation for all the messing about. Alas no. It was just that the first class check-in guy wasn't doing anything, and seemed like a prime target. He told us to go to where I was first sent: Domestic Departures. This time though I had my Chinese escort, and she smoothed my passage through the gate with no problems at all.

I had learned three ways of saying 'thank you' in Chinese, one basic, one more polite, and one that is used only in circumstances of extreme gratitude. This was the one I used now, giving an awkward bow at the same time. 'Fēicháng gǎnxiè nín,' I said, haltingly. I don't know which of us blushed more, but she smiled, hopefully understanding what I'd said. On the other hand, I might have just intimated that I'd like to go home and meet her sister, so I figured I should beat a retreat through security as quickly as possible.

The train to London; my only first class experience

Fast forward, and a month later, having successfully achieved all I wanted to do in England, I headed back to Heathrow, firstly taking a train from Liverpool to London Euston. This turned out to be the highlight of my trip, partly because I treated myself to a first class ticket, and secondly - because the journey was delayed by an hour and twenty minutes - I received a full refund on the fare. Score! So that was the journey, plus lunch with wine(s), for free. Not complaining, and I still made it to Heathrow with two hours to spare.

So then I was back on Hainan Airlines doing the reverse journey. Once again there was a cohort of about forty English and Kiwis, and once again some of them (I can say 'us' now that I'd done the journey one way at least), were able to provide valuable knowledge of what to expect. But a bonus for me was making the acquaintance of a thirty-something hipster from England called Jack. We hared a row of seats from London to China, then were split up for the remaining flights, but at Changsha and Haikou we also shared the endurance of waiting in airports in the early hours of the morning, with nothing open and the temperature at 31 degrees Celsius. We'd have killed for a cold lager.

Jack was headed to New Zealand for a campervan holiday (in winter, I know!), so I did what I could to help him plan his journey, and to manage his expectations. And no, at no stage did I shout 'Hi Jack!' during the flight.

With Jack at 2.30 in the morning, at Haikou,
looking far happier than we should be

I enjoyed his company though, and I'm always pleased to help anyone who's visiting Aotearoa/New Zealand.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. I'm not going to review the airline particularly, they're all much of a muchness unless you're flying business or first class. Ultimately, in third class it really is just a test of endurance, especially on long-haul flights of eleven hours or more. They should include it in Iron Man challenges: running, cycling, and sitting on a plane for 12 hours.

Travelling via China was a bit of a mission, but at least I didn't get arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers for having anti-Trump memes on my phone. It was worth the journey to avoid that. Oh, and they did give me more than one beer, so 'Fēicháng gǎnxiè nín' Hainan Airlines!

Let's Twist Again...

 Mike Bodnar chooses a lesser-travelled road for a solo ride on his Royal Enfield motorcycle...

A 'buttock-clencher' approaches...

There might have been a slight frost overnight, but now, where the sun has touched it, much of the narrow winding road is dry. Except for some of the dark corners, overgrown on both sides with pines, tree ferns, or other natives, where sunbeams have yet to penetrate. Here the surface is damp, and I throttle down, changing from third gear to second, with an ever-so-slight touch on the rear brake pedal. There are some corners I take a little too fast - buttock-clenchers I call them. This is not a road for cavalier riding, so I slow down even more. There's no rush.

I'm on the Akatarawa Road in the lower North Island of New Zealand. My bike is a 2019 Royal Enfield Classic 500cc, the lineage of which can be traced back to 1901, in Redditch, England, but whose modern pedigree is based in India. It's a story as long and twisty as the road I'm on, but if we take a shortcut we can just say that after Royal Enfield Motorcycles ceased operations in England in 1970, production continued in Madras (now Chennai), India, as India had been assembling Royal Enfield motorcycles there since 1962.

It's a great success story, and today Indian-made Royal Enfields are exported around the globe, and have gathered an almost-cult status due to many of the models looking pretty much as they did in the 1960s. It's often confusing for onlookers who see the bikes outside cafés or in car parks; one of the most common questions is, 'How long did it take to restore?', or comments such as, 'Beautiful bike, looks almost like new.'

The bike: 2019 with a 1960s look - always draws attention

So here I am, worming my way along the Akatarawa Road, on my Classic 500cc single-thumper, which at first glance does indeed look like it's 60 years old. But apart from me there's nobody to look at it, as on this sunny Tuesday morning I have the road pretty much to myself. At the western end of the road, where I joined it, there's a cautionary sign advising that the route is unsuitable for long vehicles, to turn around now, and if you are continuing, not to trust GPS instructions. Consequently I see only three vehicles in the whole 25 kilometres (15.5 miles), but of course you never know what's round the next buttock-clencher, so I'm riding carefully. In my favour, the road is sealed and in overall good condition.

The road borders the Akatarawa Forest, and is lined for much of the route with lush vegetation, which, in places, overhangs the road. Appropriately, Akatarawa means 'trailing vines.' The proximity to the forest is no accident, as the road itself originally provided access for logging. In early days there were bush mills, and even a few industrial tramways to service them, though there's little or no evidence of these now.

An Akatarawa tramway in 1903

In the 1870s the route was briefly considered for a railway line, which would have linked the Hutt Valley in the east with the coastal settlements to the west, however a different route was settled on and nothing ever came of the rail venture. There is, however, as I ride through the twists and turns, a chugging noise - the sound my single-cylinder bike makes as I occasionally accelerate on those bits of road where I can see a reasonable distance ahead. The thump of a big single is one of the aspects of these bikes that endear them to their riders. It's a sound that provides more smiles per gallon.

I glance frequently at my speedo, though not to check my speed; I have another reason for taking note of my progress, and we'll come to that a little further into the ride. But speaking of numbers, the Akatarawa district itself is sparsely populated - there are only 2.1 people per square kilometre, so my chances of finding someone on the road round a corner are slim. I do wonder what 0.1 of a person might look like though.

The roadside bush hides farms and dwellings very effectively. There's the occasional giveaway fence, or a driveway tucked away in the trees, but you could be forgiven thinking that nobody lives here. And yet they must, because, well, the road: there has to be a reason for the road. I ponder what it must be like to live out here in the middle of nowhere, getting home from your fortnightly trip to the supermarket only to realise that you forgot to buy milk. I suspect those who do live here 'in the sticks' are resilient, and somewhat self-contained. Unfairly, the duelling banjos theme to Deliverance enters my head as I turn yet another leafy corner.

Not a place to forget the milk

Slowly the road begins to become a bit wider, the curves less tight, and I'm able to use third
and fourth gear more; the Akatarawa River becomes visible to my right, and I know I'm coming to the end of the valley road. Suddenly I'm in a suburb called Brown Owl, and it's time to join State Highway 2. I turn left, glance again at my speedo, do a quick mental calculation, and realise that I have to abandon my plan to head over the Remutaka Hill to Wairarapa. Instead, with a rumble in my tummy to rival the thumping from the bike, I'm reminded it's time for lunch.

I don't particularly like riding on state highways. My Enfield's top speed is not much more than 120kph (about 75 mph), and while that's not bad, it's not really what the Classic 500 is built for. However, most of New Zealand's open road speed limit is 100kph (62mph), and I don't have any trouble maintaining that - it's just that it's nowhere near as pleasurable as burbling and weaving along country roads at a more sedate pace. But I know of a place for lunch just up ahead, so that's where I'm headed.

Aston-Norwood formal gardens, my lunchtime view

Aston-Norwood is mainly a function and wedding venue, but with a pleasant café, and I find a seat in the sun overlooking the well-tended garden. Here I do some more calculations, check Google Maps, and decide on my next destination, which, of necessity, cannot be more than 15 kilometres away. Not because I'm running out of fuel, or time - I am on a mission. Which is, to be riding in an area where it's easy and convenient for me to pull over when my odometer ticks over to read 123456. Yes, a once-in-a-lifetime event is about to happen, and I want to take a photo to document the occasion. Which is why I've abandoned my planned journey over the Remutaka Hill - it would be too dangerous - if not impossible - to pull over on the side of that hilly, twisty road to take a picture.

A simple thing, but nice

So after a filling lunch of loaded fries and a drink, I find myself retracing my journey by nine kilometres, turning left at Te Marua, and heading out through a rural area called Maymorn. 

Here the roads are flat, largely straight, and clear - perfect for what I want to do. My head nods up and down as I ride, which is me frequently checking my odometer reading, and looking ahead to gauge where the Big Event will happen. Silly, I know, but sometimes it's the simplest things in life that give the most pleasure. And then I have no more than two-tenths of a kilometre to go and I'm approaching a corner with no idea what's round it, so I decide to turn around and slowly go back so that I'll be on a straight stretch for the final click-over. And then it happens, conveniently at a quiet driveway to a rural building complex. I whip out my phone, select the camera app, and shoot at least six pictures of my lovely odometer, smiling the whole time.

As I'm in the rural area north of Upper Hutt I choose to take a country detour to get back to State Highway 2, and prolong my merging with the busy road. Instead I ride mainly flat and clear rural roads, through Whiteman's Valley, and along the more twisty Blue Mountains road, which eventually winds its way smoothly down, twisting and turning, to join the main highway.

And so I head home, the late afternoon sun on my right, the harbour of Whanganui-a-Tara to my left, its blue waters barely ruffling in the light breeze. I'm finally riding top-gear territory, and feel it's almost the equivalent of giving a horse free rein after having it compete in a tight and demanding gymkhana. 

We are  very lucky in Aotearoa/New Zealand that motorcycling can be a year-round activity, unlike, say, the UK where many (most?) motorbikes get tucked up by their owners from November through to April while winter does its worst, and the road crews spread salt and grit on the icy roads. The temperature for today's ride has been about 14 degrees Celsius, with ups and downs to that on the Akatarawa Road. Some dark corners the temperature would suddenly drop, reminding me that it's technically still winter, and yet on the sunny bits the warmth was palatable. Spring is coming.

It must be over 25 years since I last rode the Akatarawa Road, and I certainly won't leave it that long again (I mean, I am 71, so if I did I'd have to still be riding at 96!). If you'd like to do the trip yourself, here's a Google Earth 3D map (above), along with one (right) showing my full journey on the day.

Those who know the region will see that I've done my best to avoid State Highway 1 and Transmission Gully. Coffee was in the sun at Pauatahanui.

Maybe I'll do the Akatarawa trip again when my speedo's about to read 234567.

Go Home, Tommy! Go Home! (An ANZAC Day Special)

Mike Bodnar talks to a survivor of the Normandy Landings on D-Day, 6 June 1944, and discovers that not everyone in France was pleased to see the allies arrive...

Private Bill Broad, No.10582516

Fresh-faced Bill Broad was just 21 years of age when he set sail on an American ship from Portsmouth in the dead of night on 6 June, 1944. His destination: France. His mission: land on the coast at a location codenamed Gold Beach, at Arromanches in Normandy, and, along with almost 160,000 other troops, help drive the Germans back inland. It was time for the allied forces to fight back.

Originally from Folkestone, England, Bill was a private in the army back then. He'd been drafted on his 18th birthday, after already having been in the fire service - his voluntary contribution to the war effort while he waited for conscription. Little did he know at the time he joined up that he would later play a part in D-Day, one of the greatest military manoeuvres in history... and would go on to capture a German.

I met Bill in 2015, in Auckland, New Zealand. He had (obviously) survived the D-Day landing at Normandy, and I took the opportunity of his being at his daughter's house - where I too was staying briefly - to chat to him about his part in the invasion.

It's a fact that old soldiers sometimes sanitise their role in a conflict, for any number of reasons. These include: wanting to avoid remembering the trauma of war, the sharp memories of their actions and the battles they fought in having become less focused over time, an unconscious purging of the sheer horror of certain moments, and of course, modesty - that their role played little importance in the overall outcome. Many do not like to be thought of as heroes.

I don't know which, if any, affected Bill's retelling of D-Day and the weeks and months that followed as World War 2 drew to a close, but that day in the kitchen of his daughter's house he was very unassuming and casual in his recounting. 'It filled in a few years I suppose,' he smiles, summarising his active service from 1941 through to the end of hostilities and the mopping-up operations in Germany.

Plan of attack. Image: BBC History Magazine

Go home Tommy!

Bill says there was no sense of excitement while crossing the English Channel, and little appreciation that they were taking part in something historic. He recalls that he and those around him treated it as 'just another exercise,' a phrase he uses a few times. 

His retelling of the arrival at Gold Beach, around 0400 hours, is more pragmatic than emotional, despite the carnage he witnessed after getting ashore.

A landing craft approaching Omaha Beach. Image: Wikipedia

'We were pretty quiet [on the boat] going over... we weren't upset or excited about it really, y'know, we just took it in our stride as though it was an exercise... anyway, we landed, and there was quite a lot of opposition, and the battleships were firing shells over us, bullets flying everywhere, and bodies... there were quite a few bodies around the place...'

Having survived the initial drama of the landings, Bill and his fellow troops headed up the beach and on up a slope, 'Quite a decent slope, probably a small cliff you'd call it,' he recalls. 'And when we got near to the top there were quite a few bodies, mostly our guys, lying around, and there was this lady, pointing out to sea, and she was saying, "Go home Tommy! Go home Tommy!"'

Bill believes she was old enough to have seen a lot of war, possibly even the First World War, and Operation Overlord (as the D-Day invasion was codenamed) with its massive strategic bombardment of the land behind the coast, the tens of thousands of troops swarming up the beaches firing their weapons, the thick smoke, the explosions, and the British, American and other aircraft roaring overhead, was, he says, too much for the French woman. 'She'd had enough.' 

The harsh reality. Image: Britannica

In fact, he recalls, as they made their way through France the woman's standpoint was to haunt them, and far from being hailed as liberators, the allies were treated with a degree of contempt. 'We had about six weeks when [the French] wouldn't even talk to us...'

Training

Growing up on the south coast of England, Bill and his parents had been regularly exposed to the air raids and bombs of the Luftwaffe during the previous five years, so he was no stranger to the chaos of war. 

He says that where his family lived in Folkestone was very close to a tall industrial chimney, and Folkestone - thanks to its being a close and easy target on the south coast -  earned it the nickname 'Hellfire Corner.'

Folkestone bomb damage. Image: Folkestone Museum

'It was only twenty miles from France... and there was always something going on there, especially when the sun was in the right position. Fighter bombers would come down, and we had a big chimney stack... they probably used that as a target. We had all our windows blown out. I felt sorry for my parents that they had to put up with all that.'

On the other hand, it was an introduction -  a baptism by bombing, if you will - to some of the mayhem he would later face on D-Day.

The planning for Overlord began in 1943, and it wasn't long before Bill was sent up to Scotland where training for the Normandy invasion was centred (as well as at a beach in Devon). In Scotland, Bill's detachment practised landings on the Isle of Arran off the west coast, and he recalls training with the commandos, who would be among the first ashore. 

Live ordnance in training for D-Day. Image: Wikipedia

Private Broad and his 10-OBD (Ordnance Beach Detachment) of sixty troops were tasked with logistical support: supplying the forward troops with all the necessary supplies and equipment they would need - including ammunition - as the allied forces pushed north following the Normandy landings. 

Despite the supportive nature of their role, 10-OBD were put through all the same training as the forward troops, including practising the invasion under live ammunition. It was not for the faint-hearted.

'When we were exercising we used real bullets. You had bullets flying over your head all the time, so that you got used to them.'

Rations and Food

'We were lucky, we got through,' he says of the days and weeks that followed the landings, 'and everything seemed to move very well, y'know... we never had any real problems. The worst problems were the vehicles breaking down.'

But even having successfully dodged bullets and explosions, Bill says there was no real celebration of having made it into France. 'We were lucky to get our heads down and have five minutes' sleep. All you had was a blanket, and you had to find a place to sleep if you could, y'know. In the sand somewhere perhaps. But you got used to that sort of life though.' 

Food - of varying quality and quantity - was something else 10-OBD had to get used to. 

A D-Day ration pack. Image: The Keep Military Museum

'All our food came in special packs. We had what they called "the fourteen-man pack" - that was food for fourteen men for one day... there were nice things in some of them and not so nice things in others,' he laughs. 'The ones we used to go for were the ones with the steak and kidney puddings! They were in tins, and you just opened the tin up and that was it.'

There were also, Bill recalls, something called 'emergency packs,' which don't sound at all appetising. 'You could scrape this stuff and make it into a sort of porridge if you put some water with it. And you had biscuits, hard-packed biscuits for emergencies.

'You really didn't bother much about food I don't think; you mainly [needed] to get on with the job and get it done.'

On the other hand, I learned much later that Bill had told his son Ralph about how he and his mates had found - and consumed - cigars and champagne in a French chateau, so for one day at least it wasn't just dreary rations, and it could be argued that they finally did get around to celebrating their successful landing at Normandy. 

Tea, of course, has long been the staple of the British, whether in a theatre of war or at the kitchen table at home, and where there's some tea leaves, a container, water and a fire, tea will be made...

'We used to get an old biscuit tin, light a fire underneath it, put some water in it, a handful of tea leaves - what they called "army tea" y'know - and a tin of evaporated milk, Carnation.'

And having a brew whenever you could was essential, both for the stomach and for morale. 'You'd only get one good meal a day, you wouldn't get many more.'

Bill Captures a German

The advance into Hamburg, may 1945.
Image: QRH Museum

Private Broad and his fellow troops carried on north in their three-ton trucks, through Belgium. It was here that Bill once again forgot to tell me of some drama that he'd previously told his son Ralph: a truck carrying his team and equipment rolled after driving into a shell crater, injuring everyone on board. 

After being patched up overnight by the locals, 10-OBD had insult added to injury when they discovered next morning that their lorry, when they returned to it, had been stripped of all its goods . No doubt the locals felt they deserved some compensation.

And so they continued through Holland (where some of the detachment consumed rather too much potato schnapps on one occasion, allegedly just to keep warm on a bitterly cold night, though apparently some would later have no memory of this!) eventually crossing the border into Germany.  

As in France, the allies received a less-than-warm welcome; like the woman on the cliff at Arromanches, many of the German population must have had enough of war. But only in some areas; in others their arrival was celebrated.

For Bill though, it soon became time to take off his helmet, put down his rifle, and pick up... a clipboard.

'When I got to Hanover, the war ended... they didn't really know what to do with us because we'd been specially trained for that one job.'

However, salvation was at hand - in the need for uniforms. Officers, Bill says, had nowhere to buy their outfits, but of course one still had to look the part, what? So Bill suddenly found himself manager of his own haberdashery business. It was a stitch in time.

Civilians in Berlin watch the Allies arrive.
Image: Imperial War Museums

'So [the military brass] thought that us guys could set up shops for them... we put one in Hamburg, one in Hanover, and Berlin I think had one. When the shops were set up and the goods were ready to be sold, we had to find some ladies to serve these officers.'

The newly-created clothing enterprise advertised the vacancies, knowing they would draw a good response, but not because the German women particularly wanted to work for the British. 'If the German people didn't work, they didn't eat, so jobs were in great demand.'

Thirty women were employed, which is when Bill captured his one and only German. 'I ran the office side, and she was there, and I noticed [her], and I said, "I'm going to marry that girl," and they said, "Oh no you're not!" so they posted me two hundred miles away!'

On the other hand, Bill was promoted to staff sergeant, and his forced exile and posting in charge of a warehouse didn't stop him thinking about the young woman he'd met while recruiting help for the stores. He pursued what avenues were available to get her an official clearance. This meant she had to undertake completion of the Fragebogen.

Page 1 of the Fragebogen.
Image: GHDI

Entrance Exam

'That girl' was Christa. She had spent the war working as a Red Cross nurse, tending to injured soldiers, even playing the accordion for them on occasion to lift their spirits. 

'She wasn't a bad Nazi or anything like that, and I knew that' Bill says. But of course the British and Americans, now in command, didn't know it, which is where the Fragebogen came in. 

The Fragebogen was a bit like an exam paper, but one aimed at eliciting answers from Germans as to the roles they had played during the war: their backgrounds, allegiances, memberships of political parties, and so on, so that their status on returning to civilian life could be determined (or guilt, of course). It was a necessary filter.

Like so many other Germans, Christa therefore had to fill out the six pages - 131 questions - of the document, which probed her life in great detail. It was a controversial questionnaire; many Germans felt it targeted 'the little people' - the ordinary civilians - while many of the bigger fish escaped, and apparently there was some truth in that. 

It's difficult for those of us who never took part in the war to appreciate how surprising, how disarming it must have been for those who'd fought so fiercely over borders and territories, to discover that love knows no boundaries, while all around people were still simmering in resentment, suspicion, heartache, and horror, at what had happened over the previous six years.

But they do say that love conquers all, and it won this battle too; Christa passed the Fragebogen, and her status as a non-threatening and not-guilty German was rubber-stamped. She and Bill were free to marry (which they finally did, in Germany in 1948. Christa's wedding dress was made from parachute silk).

Tommy Goes Home

So the war was over, and Bill Broad finally did as the French woman at Gold Beach had implored: he went home. Now back in England, he was given the requisite 'demob' suit, but even though he was out of uniform he still faced some battles. 

An ex-soldier gets measured up for his 'demob suit.'
Image: Ministry of Information

'I came home about a year after that, and Christa knocked at the door of my house - my parents had been suffering all this stuff in the south-east of England, y'know, bombs falling - and my mother wasn't all that excited about it. My father was all right, he was fairly reasonable.'

But Christa was accepted. And Bill managed to secure a flat in the attic of a friend's house. That was the good news. The bad news was that after the war, jobs were scarce in the UK.

'All you really got out of the army was three months' pay I think it was, and then you were on your own again...

'There was no work in Folkestone, but there was a Marks and Spencers (department store), and the only job I could get was in the store there. I was a staff sergeant in the army, and all I could do was sweep the floor with a broom. Hard going, but you've got to do what you've got to do.'

Bill later went on to find more rewarding employment with a cable manufacturing company, putting his maths skills to use designing submarine cables. And still later, he and Christa emigrated to New Zealand to start a new life, which is how I came, many, many years later, to be chatting to him in a kitchen in Auckland about his wartime experiences.

Don't Meddle!

A Victoria Cross, valued on the
BBC's Antiques Roadshow programme

As lunch was almost ready, and our conversation was drawing to a close, Bill wanted to finish on two things that concerned him: one was the tendency for people to sell medals that their parents or grandparents had won, and the other was the rising tide of opinion against the New Zealand flag, and recent moves to change it.

'There are shows on the TV, antiques-type of shows, [people] come along and, "they were my grandad's" or whatever... terrible that they could even stoop [that] low. That's the lowest form of life as far as I'm concerned: people that sell other people's medals.'

For decades there has been debate about whether it's time for New Zealand's national flag to be changed, driven by a variety of emotions. Some claim the existing flag is confusingly similar to the Australian flag, while others want to see the inclusion of the UK's Union Flag dropped from the corner, partly due to a perceived decreased relevance of the UK to New Zealand, and partly because of its connotations of colonialism.

It was at this point that Bill's own emotions came through, the one and only time in our almost hour-long conversation.

'When I think of all those guys, those New Zealanders, that died under that flag,' he chokes, 'I don't think [then prime minister] Mr. Key's got the right to touch that flag at all really. That's the way I feel about it... I always think, "We shall remember them," y'know, and if you're going to remember them, don't bugger about with the flag.'

Remembering Staff Sergeant Bill Broad

Bill's part in the Normandy landings and the push north in the months after, was formally recognised by France in 2016, when he - along with the other surviving members of D-Day - was awarded the Légion d'honneur, France's highest award for military and civilian service.

Bill died in 2020, aged 97.

This blog, and the ANZAC Day podcast I made of the interview with Bill, are in his memory. 

My thanks to his children, Julia and Ralph, for helping make this possible. 

(You can listen to edited highlights of Bill's story on Spotify Podcasts here)