Spectrum 768. The soldier and the school girl - part 2

The second part of a two-part documentary. Jack Perkins speaks with Cliff and Sylvia Carrigan.

In 1942 Cliff Carrigan was a 17 year old American United States marine based at Titahi Bay near Wellington, a camp that backed onto Sylvia's family farm.

Sylvia (then a 16 year old school girl) and her family befriended Cliff and his colleagues for about eleven months before he was drafted north to the war in the Pacific.

They talk about how he came to Sylia's school, asked her to spend their last night together, how her mother chaperoned them in the city until Cliff was told it was time to go. Sylvia gave Cliff a greenstone tiki which he kept on his dogtag.

The last time Sylvia wrote to Cliff was in 1944 when her father died. After losing contact for 38 years Cliff revisited New Zealand in 1985 and the couple married in 1991.