John Calver

Story

John Henry Calver was born into a working class family in Ipswich, England, on 25 February 1915. He was the 7th of an eventual 13 children born to Frederick and Emma Calver, descendants of labouring stock. In his mid-teens he fell foul of the law on what today might be termed a misdemeanour , pilfering vegetables , but such were the standards of the time that John was disowned by his father and given the option of going into a juvenile offenders\’ home or joining the Army. In August 1932, he went down to Colchester and enlisted in the Cavalry of the Line, 8th King\’s Royal Irish Hussars. His birth date was fudged backwards by a year enabling him to sign on as an 18-year old when he was only 17.

Posted with his unit to Abbassia, Egypt, in December 1933, he never saw England again. No longer welcome in the family home, he was launched into a military world which gave him both the freedom he sought as well as the responsibility he needed. He made L/Cpl in 1934 but was busted to trooper in 1935 after being found guilty of neglect of duties. Nevertheless, he soon gained acting and then permanent rank as L/Cpl and Cpl in Palestine and Egypt. On 3 September 1939, along with the rest of the British Army, he was placed on active service.

He served during the war in tanks with the Royal Armoured Corps, 8th Army, participating in the attack on El Alamein. Wounded in 1943, he was hospitalized on Cyprus and later served in Syria, Cyrenaica and Egypt where he finished up as a Warrant Sergeant, discharged with a commendation and five campaign medals in 1946.

In Egypt, he befriended the future Aga Khan with whom he shared an enjoyment of horses and fast cars. More importantly, he also met his future wife, Arlette ‘Kay’ Patterson, daughter of a well-to-do family of expat Brits. They were married in Cairo in September 1945.

John survived the tribulations of active service but it was a freak occurrence in a hotel afterwards which almost cost him his life. Hearing a scream, he went to investigate and found two Arabs committing a robbery. When he intervened, he was shot. His recollection afterwards was of regaining consciousness in the back of an Army truck en route to hospital with the driver shouting to cars blocking his way that, if they didn\’t move, the man he was carrying would surely die.

John survived not only the shooting but also hospital itself. John was treated with penicillin, a new drug thought capable of curing any infection, but he was one of the few with an allergic reaction to it and eventually refused further injections on the ground that it was killing him. Insubordination in military hospitals was not tolerated but fortunately the doctors realised the problem.

Whatever plans he had for the future were rudely upset in 1948 when the Egyptians kicked the British out of the country. His wife\’s family, with roots going back 60 years on the paternal side and further on the maternal side, suddenly found itself dispossessed. Forced to flee within 48 hours, they lost everything including personal valuables which were seized by Egyptian officials. It must have been a terrible shock, made worse by the stark realization that life was going to get much more difficult.

The military transport which flew these expelled Brits out of Egypt took them to South Africa, the British dominion at the other end of the continent. There they started again as best they could but John\’s only qualifications Ð military service Ð counted for little in a world focused on rebuilding, not fighting. He teamed up with a businessman in the building trade but the man was a crook and John and Kay lost most of their meagre savings. John was unable to get work as a labouring contractor because in South Africa only blacks were so employed.

John and Kay struggled on but things were never going to get better so they resolved to make a fresh start, this time one of their own choosing. Kay had met an Australian woman, Norma Dorrington, working on exchange with NestlŽ, and it was she who persuaded the Calvers to come out to Australia. They boarded the SS Hector in Cape Town, en route from Liverpool to Australia with next port of call Fremantle, but the journey was such an ordeal that John and Kay swore they would never try anything like that again. When Hector docked on 11 September 1952, the two seasick passengers remained true to their vow. Settling in Perth, John found work as a concreting contractor and they never moved again. Their children, Richard and Michael, were born in 1955 and 1957.

John never took up Australian citizenship but his wife eventually did. He died in 2004, not quite 89, and Kay followed in 2006, aged 82. Their ashes were interred in Fremantle cemetery overlooking the harbour where they had arrived more than 50 years before.

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