Wendy Gruner’s search for the father she never knew

“It was the times I suppose,” says Wendy Gruner, “but for whatever reason, he wasn't spoken of much.”

Arthur Plowman, Wendy’s father was just 24 years of age when he left Orange to fight the Axis powers in the Second World War. And, like all too many who headed the call for ‘King and Country,’ Arthur would never return home.

“Our father was killed in the war flying with Bomber Command,” said Wendy. “My mother was totally devastated, and we just didn't talk about him. I was two when he went overseas, so I don't remember him at all… It wasn’t like there was a ban, we didn't ask and my mother didn't tell, so we didn't know much about him.”

It was only shortly before her mother died that Wendy got her first real glimpse into her father’s life, one that would spark a journey to England and the rediscovery of the man she had never known.

“My mother revealed to us that she had his wartime diary, we didn't even know that it existed and it was really interesting but there was a lot of stuff I didn't understand it was very technical,” said Wendy, who is now residing in Guelph, Canada.

“One day I said to my sister Robbie, how about we go to the UK and travel around and just see where he was, I thought it would be nice.”

But the trip grew into something much bigger than the sister expected.

“We managed to contact quite a few people that he trained with… just had lunch with one of them recently he's 96 and sprier than you or I,” said Wendy.

“And we tracked down the guy who was a navigator in his first crew and who was his best friend… It was while we were on this trip, I said to my sister, I think there is a book in this, and she agreed. I said she should write it, but in the end I did.”

In her book Children of a Faraway War, Wendy recounts both the story of her father and that of the sisters’ own trip to rediscover their father.

“A lot of it is about the trip, because we got on very well together and a lot of it is quite funny and silly and then some of it is quite serious and sad. So those two things are intertwined; our trip and his life there,” said Wendy.

“It is about rediscovering your parents. You really don't know them as real people, they are parents and their lives before you turned up are a complete mystery really…

“But I think we did recreate him, we’ve got down who he was: an ordinary chap, who was madly in love with our mother, but who felt, as people did in those days, the he owed it to King and Country”

Children of a Faraway War is available at Collins Booksellers, Summer Street or online.