Bruce Dowding was born in 1914 into a middle-class family in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. He won scholarships to private schools, including Wesley College, where he taught French during his Arts degree at the University of Melbourne. In January 1938, he departed to France on a travelling scholarship, guaranteed a position on the staff at Wesley on his return.

The riveting story of the young man’s life in France and why he never made the trip home is told by Bruce’s nephew Peter Dowding and co-author Ken Spillman. Many ABR readers will recall Peter Dowding as the Labor premier of Western Australia for two difficult years (1988–90) between Brian Burke and Carmen Lawrence. His uncle’s story is a lifelong obsession.

Evidently a charming young man, Dowding relished Parisian life and its romances and kept finding excuses not to return to Melbourne. Once war broke out, he felt impelled to participate, joining the British Army as an interpreter. His battalion surrendered within days in May 1940, but he managed to escape his internment camp south of Paris and fled south. There foreign intern-ees were able to use a lax parole system to move freely between Marseille, Perpignan, and Toulouse.