“I blame that bastard Hitler for my teeth,” WW2 veteran Hugh McGrath would often say as his dental bills mounted up. He could have said so much more but didn’t. So, the full extent of his wartime story didn’t unravel until the chance discovery of hundreds of letters, photos and postcards stuffed into boxes and attache cases and scattered throughout a suburban house. Hugh’s son Tom McGrath uses their unique, eye-witness commentary to recount his family’s varied experiences in both world wars — in WW1 his paternal grandfather Frank was an army captain, great-uncle Harry McGrath OBE served in the Royal Navy, and maternal grandfather Tom Rainbow was in the NZ Tunnelling Company in France. Hugh and his sister Joan served in the second world war, he in North Africa and Italy and she as a nurse in RAF hospitals in England. The book also sheds light on their post-war lives, which were peaceful, yet deeply affected by their war­time experiences. Other family papers revealed generations of McGrath ances­tral connections with the armed forces, including the Irish Brigade of the French Army. One ancestor became a viscountess — married to Lord Nelson of Trafalgar.