Hunt for dad’s story
KATELYN McIvor borrowed a precious copy of her friend’s father Alan McGregor Peart’s signed memoir before disaster struck.
The book From North Africa to the Arakan: The Engrossing Memoir of a WWII Spitfire Ace details the life of Mr Peart as he worked as a Spitfire pilot in World War II across North Africa and South-East Asia.
Ms McIvor put the book, containing Peart’s last message to his daughter Judith Power, in a suitcase before moving homes in Cairns. Then she donated the suitcase to Vinnies.
“She lent me the book, knowing that she could trust me with it,” Ms McIvor said.
“Then her dad died last month, and she wanted to have the memoir back.
“I’d put it in a suitcase to keep it safe, but while I was moving houses about a month ago I accidentally donated the book to Vinnies Stratford inside the suitcase.”
But things got even worse for Ms McIvor as she searched for the missing book.
“I went to all of the Vinnies stores in Cairns, and even to the Red Cross just in case, but they couldn’t find it. Then, that weekend, there was a massive book sale with 20,000 books,” she said.
Ms McIvor said the Vinnies staff were told to keep an eye out for the book, but it looked like it had walked out the door with a new owner.
“It’s a really unique book. It’s got a hard cover, and it has “to my darling daughter” written inside it. It also has a return address,” she said.
“If you’ve gone to an op shop in the last month or if you know that your friends read autobiographies have a look and see if it’s in there.
“You can even just post it straight to the return address written inside it.”
She said Ms Power would be forever grateful for whoever could return the book to her.
“It’s her father’s work and the second copy of the book that was ever printed,” Ms McIvor said. “I never wanted anything bad to happen to the book, I know how important it is to her.
“She’s devastated that it’s gone. It won’t mean very much to the person who has it right now, but it means everything to the family.
“Maybe this is part of Mr Peart’s story, to have the book get back to his daughter this way.”