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an article from the New
Plymouth Sunday Express
April 1983
by Murray Moorehead.
`The ranks of the old
Gallipoli veterans are
thinned now to a mere
handful, and there would
not be much more than a
decade left for anyone
to get to know, in
person, a man who could
proudly claim to have
played a part in the
forging of the great
Anzac brotherhood.
They have certainly had
full lives, these dogged
veterans. Those still
with us on Anzac Day two
years hence will be able
to look over 70 long and
eventful years since
they helped make history
on the slopes of an arid
and inhospitable
peninsula which most of
the world had never
heard of before.
But it is not only the
living whom we may get
to know with some
intimacy. To the members
of the Kivell family in
New Plymouth, a man
named Ralph Doughty
remains someone more
than merely some distant
ancestor who died in a
war that was over long
before most of them were
born. Ralph Doughty is,
in his way, still very
much a part of the
family. New generations
of Kivells feel that
they know him almost as
intimately as those to
whom he said cheery
goodbyes as he left
Taranaki to seek his
fortune in Australia
shortly before the Great
War broke out.
Ralph Doughty was one of
those gems of men who
kept a diary. He was not
unique in that, of
course; army records and
museums are full of war
diaries. But two things
make Doughty's record of
the war stand out. The
first is that unlike
most others he kept a
record of every day of
his war, even the dull
days that other diarists
might have skipped over,
and even had days- apart
from those which,
through sickness or
wounds, he had no
recollection.
The second is that his
diary was born to be
treasured by his family.
From the oldest to the
youngest, members of the
family know this man
whose portrait hangs in
the Stratford War
Memorial arcade, for he
reminisces with them
through the entries in
his diary as surely as
if he were still with
them as one of the last
of the old brigade.
The record of Ralph
Doughty's war begins in
a small pocket pad,
protected inside a cover
of thick leather and
with the pages fixed
firmly in place with a
weaving of thin wire. It
is not easy to follow,
even though it is
written in a neat and
flowing hand. The
entries are in pencil
and are written to take
advantage of every
square millimetre of the
precious paper. A member
of the family is
currently working hard
to translate the
handwriting into a more
easily readable
typescript.
With the pad filled on
both sides of each page
by the end of November
1915, the chronicle
continued in a
collection of notebooks,
day by historic day,
until July 23, 1917 when
Lady Luck, who had been
right at his side on so
many occasions during
the past 26 months,
chanced to be looking
the other way. Ralph
Doughty died from his
wounds on July 25 and
was buried at Coxyde [Cosayde]
Military Cemetery in
Belgium. He died a hero,
having been awarded the
Military Cross just two
months earlier for
gallantry.
Stratford
He died an officer and a
hero, but he began his
war as the most ordinary
of men, the most typical
of Anzac soldiers. He
was born in Stratford
and was 22 years of age
when he joined the
Australian Army in |
