Anzac Day memories: The daughter

Annette Rutter says she took little interest in the war as she grew up. Picture / Paul Estcourt

When Annette Rutter attended high school in the mid-1960s the world war her father fought in was not really considered to be history.

"It had only been about 20 years earlier ... we took no interest."

It was not until quite recently that Mrs Rutter, 56, began to think about World War II and what it meant to her family.

That seems hard to believe, given that the bookshelves in the lounge of her Manurewa home are crammed with war titles such as Raid on Rommel and Pearl Harbor.

"That's my husband - he was in the Territorials and is hugely interested."

The grim realities of a war fought on the other side of the world only really hit Mrs Rutter when she accompanied her father, Harry Grey, on a trip back to some of the war zones in North Africa, Turkey and Greece in 2004.

With Mrs Rutter as caregiver, they had tagged along with a group representing the 28th Maori Battalion.

"Dad and I had quality time together ... he was able to talk a lot as he went. It was a history lesson to me and I bought lots of books."

Mrs Rutter recalls a restaurant lunch in the mountains at Crete. "You could see the old metal road around the mountains which the soldiers had to walk over. They were very hard times."

Mrs Rutter said the impact of seeing the huge war cemeteries hit her hard.

"Those white headstones, many saying unknown soldier ... what a terrible waste of life. It was quite a shock to the system."

She does not think her father realised what he was in for when he went to war.

"To him it started as an adventure. He wanted to go ... probably thought it would be the only way he was ever going to see the world.What a hell of an OE."

Now she could better understand her father's moods when she was young.

"He was very closed when we were growing up. As children all we ever knew is Dad went to war."

Mrs Rutter grew up in Mt Roskill where Mr Grey gradually built the family home.

He had worked as a joiner before and after the war, later getting work repairing motor mowers and outboard motors.

For years the family only had a motorbike as transport.

"We didn't have a car to go anywhere until I was in standard four."

Mrs Rutter was the oldest of the four children - three girls and a boy - and left school at the end of the fifth form to get a job to help make ends meet.

The years Mr Grey spent away fighting for his country had put the family, like many others, behind financially.

He had met his wife to be, Jean Shardlow, in Petone before the war and their tentative relationship managed even to survive a "Dear John" letter from her in the years while he was away.

Mrs Rutter said her mother, like the rest of the family, had not discussed the war in any detail with Mr Grey after he returned.

"He only started talking about it when one of the grandchildren asked what he did in the war and wanted to see his medals." Anzac Day was finally for her no longer "just a holiday".