About Ken
Kenneth Rochester Clift - ‘Ken Clift’ - is an Australian author best known for his stories and prose based on his experience in WWII.
Ken Clift was born in the eastern suburbs of Sydney and moved with his family to North Bondi in 1926 as he describes it “our family moved to a newly built cottage at 56 Murriverie Rd. North Bondi. It was a virtual wonderland – to the south endless sand dunes, to the north a children’s pool and at each end of the beach rock pools filled with darting fish, anemones, crabs and seaweed.. enough to delight the heart of any child!..Woollahra Golf Club was a Chinese vegetable garden and we walked barefoot across sand dunes to Bondi Beach Public School! Of course it couldn’t last, first came the ‘Barber-Green’ tractors to level the sand dunes. Surveyors followed and a pattern of criss-crossed concrete roads emerged. Auctioneers under marquees disposed of building blocks for a quid a foot! Then followed the buildings, cottages and flats!”
The day after war was declared by Prime Minister Bob Menzies Ken enlisted with the A.I.F and sailed with the 1st convoy to Palestine, Egypt, Bardia Tobruk (where he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal – D.C.M), Greece, Crete, Ceylon, Kokoda Trail and concluded WWII as a Lieutenant in the 1st Australian Parachute Battalion.
While on leave Ken married Valerie Regan Mosman and they remain happily married today. They have four children, sixteen grandchildren and six great grandchildren.
Ken has published seven books and one play and is working on several more. He has worked as a historical adviser on several films (Mike Willisee’s Australians Simpson and the Donkey, Channel 9, Kennedy-Miller – Fragments of War) and is a Patron of North Bondi RSL, Life Member of North Bondi Surf Club and Bondi Icebergs. In 2007 the Defence Force School of Signals (Macleod Victoria, Australia) renamed their Holding Troop the Ken Clift Troop.
Not only famous for his D.C.M and publications, Ken achieved a degree of notoriety when one of his youthful episodes returned to haunt him in 1983. Prior to WWII Ken assisted a good friend (Tom Baker) to ‘disappear’ to avoid jail. Tom’s marriage had broken down and he was ordered to pay spousal support - despite being impoverish and his ex-wife’s economies exceeding his. With a choice of Long Bay Jail or disappearing Tom opted to disappear to New Zealand assisted by Ken Clift’s passport (Tom was later sued for divorce (on the grounds of desertion) by his wife in his absence). In 1939 Tom/Ken enlisted in the Royal New Zealand Air Force and travelled to England and remarried. In 1943 Tom/Ken’s Typhoon Aircraft disappeared into the Thames tragically leaving behind his pregnant wife (who gave birth to another Ken Clift). In 1983 Tom/Ken’s aircraft was discovered, fished out of the Thames and displayed in the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum in West Sussex – this event was widely reported in Australia and New Zealand – leaving Ken Clift the original with a bit of explaining to do…..(Ken is currently working writing this story – called – Double Identity).