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Marking Time (An Account of Ordinary Soldiering)

by Harry Foxley

608 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-1964; ISBN 1-4120-1587-1; US$42.00, C$46.99, EUR34.50, £24.00

Marking Time is an autobiography that mostly recounts service, active and otherwise, but always amusing, in the Australian and English armed forces.

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book Marking Time is an autobiographical account of a life that was mostly devoted to service in the armed forces of Australia and the UK. The author migrated to Australia in the mid-fifties and enlisted in the army at seventeen, serving initially with an infantry battalion and, later, with an airborne unit. Returning to the UK in 1969, the author joined a parachute unit of the RAF Regiment and served actively in the Oman and Northern Ireland, making a full career that included exchange duties with the Royal Marines. In recounting his service, active and otherwise, the author seeks to preserve the humour that is the warmth and depth of service experience anywhere.

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About the Author Harry Foxley was born in the railway town of Crewe but at the age of fourteen migrated to Australia. At seventeen he enlisted in the Australian Infantry, later served with an airborne unit and saw active service along the Thai-Malay border. Following served, he worked his way around Australia, variously occupied as a dirver, miner and railroad worker, during the boom years of Australian mineral exploitation. He returned to the UK in 1969 and enlisted with a parachute squadron of the RAF Regiment serving actively in the Oman during a largely unnoticed war, and in Northern Ireland. Since 'hanging up his boots' he has lived in Cornwall with his wife Joan and three unruly dogs, but he wil soon return permanently to Australia. His interests include industrial history, family research, medal collecting and early jazz.

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Excerpts

Introduction

Good reasons for attempting autobiography are hard to find. The prospect of making a pile of money is one (this manuscript seems unlikely to), whilst perhaps a loftier motive might be claimed in the hope of leaving an accurate record for one's children (I have none). Discounting these reveals the somewhat less attractive possibility that my motivation is merely self-aggrandisement, ego or vanity - vices I believed that I had jettisoned some years ago.

It is however possible that I have laboured to satisfy the curiosity of extant family and friends; the former having perhaps wondered what I found so difficult about a settled and secure life in a prosperous country, and the latter because they forever asked when I would publish my diaries. (The diaries, actually, proved unworthy of much other than blocking draughts in the loft, although they served to correct an often faulty memory when I began the manuscript.)

It is true that in recent years I have become curious about my more immediate ancestors and the town in which I was born, and I have included the results of research which such curiosity provoked, although the product is merely a few hundred words among two hundred thousand of more egocentric study. Perhaps an autobiography should only seek to pay tribute to family and friends, whilst hoping at the very least that readers may be mildly diverted and entertained by the incidental humour of those experiences which seemed wholly bereft of humour at the time, although the humour was always present.

I have endeavoured to write honestly and objectively, but the latter is especially difficult and perhaps the more so where I describe some aspects of reservist service in very recent years. Opinions expressed are of course my own and I offer no evidence that they are either widely held or popular.

The 'interludes' may appear whimsical and perhaps are, but they represent thoughts and experiences that I wished to include, yet did not sit easily within the narrative. They may be altogether ignored.

I have divided the book into four segments, having discovered that the biblical 'three score years and ten' yields five periods of fourteen years, which fits my life to date rather conveniently. At fourteen I was newly arrived in Australia and at twenty-eight I returned to England. At forty-two I had recently married and had just purchased my first house. At fifty-six I had put off uniform and 'nailed boot' for the last time, after a virtual lifetime in military service of one sort or another. At which point the narrative closes, and it is anyone's guess as to what the final span will bring.

As to names: some appear and some do not. I excluded all names from the initial draft and this seemed, upon revision, to be very artificial. I have therefore included all names where it seemed natural to do so, although those that do not appear are nevertheless warmly recalled from time to time.

Marking Time? Well, the military connotation rendered a fairly apt title for that which mostly describes a life in uniform, but it is also intended to convey the sense of describing events and experiences that have marked one's progression through life - and time. I otherwise might have called it 'Chronicles of Wasted Time', a fragment of Shakespeare and an excellent title which has been used elsewhere.

Be advised that the bad language appears within a few chapters and that this may seem gratuitous, offensive and wholly unnecessary. Four-letter words possibly still qualify as 'obscene', although I have formed my own opinions as to that over the years. For example, several of the larger landowners in this country annually receive £1,000,000 in EU funds for not growing crops, whilst several thousands of children in other countries die each day of starvation. Perhaps that offers a better definition of obscenity, but it is maybe too large an argument to develop in a short introduction. Suffice instead to say that this is mostly a soldier's tale that is sometimes written in soldiers' language.

The mistakes, whether in life or in the book, are my own, but then, so are some of the jokes.

Harry Foxley
Holywell Bay
Cornwall

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Catalogue Information

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