A war-time romance
Still a teenager, Doris Clark felt the patriotic call of duty when her homeland was under threat like never before. World War II wasn’t going well for the Allies in the early years. Britain was suffering through war-time depravation and the constant bombing during The Blitz, Germany’s relentless campaign to drive its arch enemy into the ground.
Of course, they would never surrender and everyone did their bit to defend the Home Country, including Clark.
She signed up to the Women’s Auxilliary Air Force. The tens of thousands of women weren’t pilots, but they were looking after Air Force bases and snooping on German communications.
Clark and her colleagues would also sit on the tail of spitfire aeroplanes as they taxied across airfields, acting as ballast.
She may have joined the Air Force because she liked the colour of their stockings, but Clark took her job seriously.
Even decades later she was still reluctant to reveal details about the German communications she translated into English.
‘‘She remained immensely proud of her contribution and service to the British Air Force, attending dawn parades [and] never losing her Air Force march, and proudly displaying her medals,’’ granddaughter Linda Smith said at Clark’s funeral at the Milson Combined Church, Palmerston North.
‘‘A lot of it she didn’t talk about. She said it was ‘top secret’ and she cited confidentiality,’’ Smith said afterwards.
The most enduring legacy of Clark’s time in the armed forces was the romance she formed with future husband Albert, known as Bertie, who was also in Air Force communications, but under the Kiwi flag.
The pair were breaking the rules as they weren’t of the same rank, so shouldn’t have been courting. Their love conquered such rigidity and the pair married in Tunstall, England, in May 1945, after Bertie came back from India
with a ring and a proposal.
But the pair were separated when Bertie returned to New Zealand on the last defence ship.
Clark, an only child, went back to her parents and waited in Suffolk, where she was raised and educated – unusually, for a woman at that time, she stayed in school until she was 17.
After a couple of aborted attempts to leave the English dockside, where her ships broke down, and a forced wait when it was ruled she was too pregnant to travel, Clark finally joined many other British war brides and their babies on a boat headed for New Zealand.
It was a tough trip, with six bunks crammed into each cabin and mums sleeping on top and their children below.
Clark and Bertie initially lived in Bunnythorpe before, in 1948, moving to Milson, where they raised their three daughters on a quarter-acre plot. They kept a flourishing garden and chickens and Clark remained there until 2015, long after Bertie died in 1988.
Clark lived a life of rich community involvement, helping at the Milson Play Centre, supervising at the school pool over summer and with the foundation of the Milson Combined Church.
During her time in Bunnythorpe, Clark became interested in the piano and started teaching pupils, something she did into her 80s. She mainly played classical tunes herself.
‘‘To support some of her students through their desire to sit school certificate exams, she also went back to school and passed with an A.’’
From there, she completed a diploma of Western music from Otago University.
Clark travelled regularly, returning to England to see her parents in 1960 and then many times to catch up with friends and also to Australia, to visit one of her daughters.
She is survived by two daughters, eight grandchildren and nine greatgrandchildren.