Working for his father's cab business horses were his tool of trade, his favourite went with him.
Like so many Anzacs, Aussie or Kiwi, he talked little of his time there - however Aileen does know he had a grudging respect for their Turkish opponents.
"He said they were very good shots, their snipers pinned down the Anzacs' shove."
Memorabilia
Sam's brother-in-law was more forthcoming. He was a prolific post card writer and one or other of them was a keen photographer. Aileen's unsure which, but the Anzac memorabilia she's inherited are poignant family museum pieces.
Pictures in her collection include her father having a battlefield haircut, wounded Turkish camels and captured officers.
She has his paybook, date of issue September 21, 1914, the first payment recorded is two shillings and 11 pence, the amount varied, and the engraved cigarette case that was Princess Mary's 1915 Christmas gift to Allied troops.
Despite Sam Bailie's reticence vocalising the ghastliness of Gallipoli, he was more willing to talk of conflict elsewhere.
Hostilities were running high in Ireland when he took leave there.
"When he went to his relatives in the north they had guns to fight the south, when he went to those in the south they had guns to fight the north. One cousin was marrying "the other side", her mother threatened to shoot her on the church steps," Aileen recounts.
Although uninjured in battle, Sam Bailie didn't return home unscathed; a weak heart was diagnosed making him unsuitable for heavy work.
"My mother said he suffered horrendous nightmares and he wouldn't have anything to do with guns for the rest of his life."
Aussie ties
As a youngster Aileen knew nothing about the New Zealand part of the Anzac equation; "to us it was a foreign country" but since becoming 'one of us' she's formed the view the Australia government treated Gallipoli returned servicemen far better than its New Zealand counterpart.
"The Aussies received a lifetime pension and dad was granted a block of land outside Melbourne, it was terrible, worthless, but he paid rates on it for years."
Sam Bailie's loyalty to king and country extended into the 1939-1945 war.
"He joined up again, but was too old to go overseas so did some sort of service on the home front. He always saved his sweet ration for his kids."
Early years
Which brings us to Aileen's life, starting with her own survival story.
At one, she was so ill four doctors gave her a 50-50 chance of survival; discharged from Melbourne Children's Hospital those odds dipped to one in a hundred.
Pink's disease was the likely suspect, Aileen now knows it's triggered by mercury poisoning.
"Somehow I got better, it never impinged on my future health to any great degree."
World War II was in its early stages when she began school however it's not war she has vivid recollections of, rather it's the day Quambatook's sky blacked out.
"Our teachers sent us inside, kids at another school knelt and said the Lord's Prayer, they thought it was the end of the world."
The reality was the drought-ravaged region was in the grip of a dust storm so severe history records it as a 'phenomenon'.
NZ bound
On her 16th birthday Aileen started work as a bank ledger keeper. Fortunately she hadn't inherited her father's firearms aversion.
"I was issued with my own revolver, target practise was knocking bottles off a wall at the race course, I loved it."
Jobs in Sydney and Melbourne followed. An English workmate suggested Aileen accompany her to New Zealand.
"It was the days of 6 o'clock closing, the first sight we saw was a man spread-eagled on the footpath. We heard this hotel in Rotorua called Brents would take on anybody, we wrote a pathetic letter and got jobs as housemaids."
The year was 1962.
Although her friend soon left town Aileen became a Brent's fixture, moving from housemaiding to waitresses and overseeing staff "definitely making me persona non grata".
In her latter Brent's years she ran the bottle store."When the boss offered me the job I said it would be too rough but he said he couldn't get an honest man."
Aileen hadn't been at Brent's long when she met future husband, Scotsman Mervyn MacKay at a Soundshell dance.
When they married neither had family at the wedding, Brent's handled the catering - in the nick of time.
"On my wedding day a chef said no one knew anything about it, I burst into tears, it worked, they came up trumps."
There've been two daughters and a number of jobs since Brent's - including a year in the RSA office.
Aileen doesn't have the urge to attend any local Anzac Day commemorations, she intends spending it at home "pretty much as I always do, watching the Gallipoli ceremony on Maori TV, they do a magnificent job, Dad always cried on Anzac Day, I probably will too, being a veteran's child is such a huge honour."
AILEEN MACKAY (NEE BAILIE)
Born: Quambatook, Australia, 1934.
Education: Quambatook State Primary, Kyneton High.
Family: Husband Mervyn, two daughters (one in Australia), two grandsons, two granddaughters.
Interests: Family, reading "my worst fear's I'll die before I get to read all the books I want to", theatre, 'good' films, opera, ballet, bridge, charity work, Spectrum Club, "caretakes" beehives.
Personal Philosophy: "The power of laughter."
