The centenary of World War 1 inspired Wanaka man Ken Allan (69) to write the history of two men who were as different as could be, but became friends after fighting in the Battle of the Somme. They later also became his grandfathers. Mr Allan self-published just two copies of his book A Bloody Mess for the simple reason he did not want his sons to forget their great-grandfathers’ war experiences. Kerrie Waterworth reports.
John Adams, known as Jock, was born in a farm labourer's cottage in a village in Perthshire, Scotland, in 1893.
One of nine children, he emigrated to New Zealand by himself when he was 17 and found work in the Kurow district as a teamster, driving a six-horse team from 6 in the morning to 6 at night, according to the book written by Ken Allan.
Mr Adams volunteered for service and enlisted on June 11, 1915 and along with 114 other North Otago men left Oamaru for Trentham training camp the next day.
On October 9, he embarked with the 7th reinforcements for the Suez, landing on November 18.
Too late for Gallipoli, he was instead posted to the 10th (North Otago) Regiment and in April 1916 set sail for France, where he was sent to the Amentieres area to prepare for trench warfare.
He joined the fight on July 18, a few days after the start of the Battle of the Somme.
He was wounded, but was back at the frontline two days later.
The next major action for the ``North Otagos'' was on September 15 when the New Zealand Expeditionary Force took part in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, where the allies used tanks for the first time.
On the second day, Private Adams was shot in the neck.
The bullet lodged close to his spine.
After 15 months in hospitals and camps in England he was classified unfit for further duties and on February 1, 1917 returned to Otiake and married Elsie Thomas.
They lived on a soldier's settlement farm and the story goes he never bought anything if he did not have the cash.
On February 8, 1922, twin girls Kathleen and Dorothy were born. Son John followed in 1928.
Malcolm Allan, known as Mick, was born in the London Hotel, St Kilda, Dunedin on September 7, 1892.
His father was the owner of the hotel, which burned down on February 25, 1896.
The family moved to Palmerston, then Mosgiel and back to Palmerston, where his parents ran a hotel until the area was declared ``dry''.
Young Mick Allan drove the coach and horses from Palmerston to Macraes Flat and through the Pigroot as far as Green Valley.
He also drove the gig for the local doctor.
He joined New Zealand Railways and worked in the Palmerston area before moving to Dunedin, where it was reported in the Otago Daily Times on May 6, 1910 that he saved a young boy from drowning at Ocean Beach, according to Ken Allan's book.
When his mother drew a lot for a sheep run at Kaura Hill near Maheno, the family moved there.
Mr Allan volunteered for service in the army and enlisted on April 17, 1915.
Private Allan was sent to Gallipoli and then to France, where he met Jock Adams.
On September 15 during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, Pvt Allan was seriously wounded in the left leg and ankle and lay in a shellhole in No Man's Land for three days before being found by a member of the Black Watch regiment.
He was taken to Mercers Hospital in Dublin, where it is believed he received first-class treatment until the nuns were tipped off he was Presbyterian.
He was moved to the New Zealand Hospital at Walton-on-Thames in London, but escaped out a window using sheets for a rope.
On February 13, 1917 it was decided he was unfit for further duties and would be shipped back to New Zealand.
Granted leave to visit his Scottish relatives, hetravelled to Motherwell to see his mother's sister and his cousin Mary.
Mary had been going out with a Highlands man for five years, but married Pte Allan just days later, on March 7.
Having overstayed his leave, Pte Allan, on his return to London, was fined 10 days' pay and confined to barracks for the same period.
He neglected to tell the army he had married and returned to New Zealand on a hospital ship.
His wife arrived from Scotland as a war bride in late 1918.
In 1923, at Pte Allan's request, her parents sent money for her and her young son to return to Scotland.
In 1925, when Mick Allan became seriously ill because of his war wounds (he had 19 operations), Mary's mother reportedly told her daughter to ``go back to New Zealand. You have made your bed and now you must lie in it.''.
Mick Allan had a series of jobs before buying a sheep farm just before the Depression.
Sheep prices plunged and he walked off the property with just 30 shillings to his name.
In 1941, Mick Allan suffered a severe stroke and his working days were over.
FOR many years Jock Adams and Mick Allan would meet in Oamaru on a Friday afternoon for a drink at the local hotel while their wives went shopping.
Ken Allan remembers his grandfathers always arguing about just about everything, but their war service anchored their friendship.
When Mick Allan's eldest son, Bruce, came back from World War 2 he became engaged to Kathleen Adams, the daughter of Jock Adams.
For whatever reason, there was no meeting of the parents or engagement party and it was not until Mick Allan asked Bruce where he was going one weekend that he discovered his son was going out with ``that old bastard's daughter''.
Ken Allan was 20 when his grandfather, Jock Adams, died in 1968.
``I remember one Christmas Dad asking him what he remembered about the war. The only thing he said was ``it was awful, the flies ... ''. He always carried a fly swat in his hand and there were always spots of blood on the walls and the ceilings of his house in Oamaru.''
Mick Allan died a month after Ken Allan married in 1972.
``As kids, we were fascinated by the calipers he wore on his left leg, which was shorter than the other and full of shrapnel. He didn't talk much about the war but my dad quoted him as saying in September 1939 that he would sooner cut the throats of his own sons and have their blood run in the gutter than allow them to go to war. Obviously, his experiences in World War 1 had had a major, major effect on his life.''
Jock Adams went to his grave with the bullet from the 1916 battle still lodged in his neck.
Mick Allan died with the shrapnel in his leg.
Ken Allan has visited the hospital in Dublin where Mick Allan was treated and had booked to go to Turkey last year when political strife broke out and the trip was cancelled.
``Gallipoli and the Somme are top of my bucket list.''
