Bill Minchin tells his story for his daughter Kathy

By Nicole Silverman
Originally published in New Idea 30 October 2004

Bill Minchin's Story:

Gum Leaves On My Eyes

The wounded Japanese soldier moaned as commando Bill Minchin and his mate trained their guns at him, fingers on triggers. It was 1945, during World War II in Borneo, and Bill was torn. But as he grappled with one of the hardest decisions of his life, fate stepped in.

In the lounge room of his Sydney home, Bill, 80, recounts a moment of his life detailed in his book Gum Leaves On My Eyes . ‘The Japanese soldier looked me in the eye and I knew I would be haunted by him for the rest of my life if I killed him,’ Bill recalls. ‘At that moment a chaplain drove up and was able to take him away to an aid post.’

Bill agreed to have his book written for daughter Kathy as a 50th-birthday gift from her husband Gary. He was also keen to produce a record for his two children, five grandchildren and six great grandkids.

Bill's book was written as a gift for his daughter Kathy from her husband Gary.

The family were surprised to discover a side they had no inkling of. ‘I tried to be honest,’ Bill chuckles. ‘I realised I was revealing a lot I had kept to myself.’

One lid-lifting revelation was Bill’s whirlwind courtship of his wife Dorrie, who died in 1995.

On weekend leave from commando army training base on the NSW’s north coast, 17-year-old Bill and his mate took a train from Newcastle to Sydney. A young woman, Dorothy Spinks, caught his eye and Bill plucked up the courage to ask if they could travel in her carriage.

Within 24 hours Bill had proposed to her. And his friend Alan Miller ended up marrying Dorothy’s friend Mary Moir.

‘I was a bit stand-offish and shy, but talking to Dorrie seemed to come pretty naturally. Somehow we just clicked.’

Although Bill had to leave two days later for active service, Dorrie became his lifelong partner when he came home two and a half years later.

Like many returned soldiers Bill found settling into married life difficult. But before long he and Dorrie had had two daughters – Ann and Kathy – built a house and enjoyed decades of fun and laughter with their family, including crazy pets like Daffy the skateboarding drake.
For Kathy, being able to read about her father’s life has been amazing.

‘There’s so much I didn’t know about before I was born so being able to read about Dad’s life in the early years is wonderful,’ she says. ‘His total war experience made incredible reading.’