BOER WAR TO PRESENT WAR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 62, 8 June 1942, Page 6

BOER WAR TO PRESENT WAR

REMARKABLE RECORD More than <10 years ago, when the Seventh Contingent sailed from Now , Zealand to take part in the Boer War, T. H. Mock l ord, of Duncdin, was in it. Not so very long ago, when a reinforcement left New Zealand to. join the 2nd N.Z.E.F. in the Middle East, the same T. H. Mockford, of Dunedin, was in it. Recently Private Mockford met in E«ypt two of his sons, Sergeant Thomas Mockford and Gunner Sidney Mockford, who had- arrived with the reinforcement that followed their father's. There can lie very few men in the British Empire who have served: in one war, missed another, and then served in a third in the space of 40 years, and there must be very few veterans of the Boer War serving in the ranks of in the present campaign. Mockford, senior, did not go to the Great War, because at that time he had a young family of six to care for. But when this current conflict came along, Moekford's family had grown up. Once more he was free to answer the country's call, and there were sons to answer with him. It's a far call from the days of the. mounted ri/Icmen who galloped across Africa's 1 veldt to the. days of armoured fighting vehicles which career over Egypt's desert. But a man is as young as he feels.—The Veteran.