North African Campaign
Campaign memories: Cairo, George Mackay.
Private George Mackay went overseas in December 1942 with the Eighth Reinforcements. He joined 23 Battalion as a Bren gunner at Tripoli, early in 1943. Before joining the battalion, he had had the opportunity to taste the delights of Cairo as he recounts here:
Hear George
Mackay discussing his experiences at Cairo. (mp3, 274kb)
Transcript
As the night went on the time was coming to be going home. We'd been to all the cabarets, one cabaret to the other ... having a good old time. On the way home we decided to have ... a gharry race within a certain distance to Babeluk Station.... the Maori boys were in one gharry and we're in another.... We were having the drivers on.... The idea is to get him going and then bring him in so the wheels clash and then try to get them interlocked and then the pair of them do their bun ... and then we duck off and forget about paying them. We almost succeeded but we didn't.
Kiwi troops in a gharry in Cairo.
Alexander Turnbull Library, War History Collection, DA- 01261
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