Fernleaf Cairo

(Paperback)

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Description

Its call sign was Fernleaf Cairo, and between 1939 and 1946, around 76,000 Kiwis of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force passed through Maadi Camp. Around 17 kilometres south of Cairo, the camp appeared almost overnight, as this country's permanent overseas base during the Second World War. By 1945 the camp had tar-sealed roads, two cinemas, an open-air amphitheatre, canteens, bars, chapels, sports fields, a meat-pie and ice-cream factory, and - thanks to General Bernard Freyberg - swimming baths. Egypt was a source of boundless amazement, sly humour and some disgust to the New Zealanders, an experience which left its mark, both on our language - taking a shufti - and more tangibly, the Maadi Rowing Cup. With unpublished images and first-hand accounts, Fernleaf Cairo offers a fascinating insight into the unlikely bond young New Zealanders forged with the people and city of Cairo, including their many highly colourful experiences on leave.

Author Bio

Alex Hedley is a fourth-generation bookseller and publisher, currently NZ Publisher for HarperCollins. He is also author of two bestsellers in the New Zealand book market: Fernleaf Cairo: The Fascinating Story of New Zealanders in Wartime Egypt, and High-Country Legacy: Four Generations of Aspinalls at Mount Aspiring Station. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Megan Hutching has produced six books of oral histories of the Second World War, in the New Zealanders Remember series, including most recently, Last Line of Defence: New Zealanders Remember the War at Home. Her first major piece of research was on women opposed to war in New Zealand in the early twentieth century, and this sparked her abiding interest in writing about the extraordinary lives of ordinary women.