The Falkland Islands, Bennys and more beatings........1984......

Our home from home in Port Stanley was a Coastel, an oil rig accommodation block floating in the harbour about 50 metres offshore and linked to the land by a steel walkway. I shared a room with 3 other guys, Andy Cruickshank being one of them, the other was Mick Hayes and the 3rd was Andy Orton, who was hilarious 24 hrs a day and kept everyone laughing. The early part of the tour was spent mending roads and generally tidying up the locale around Port Stanley. A great book to read that shows more detail on the day to day life of us Sappers based in the Falklands during the immediate aftermath of war is “Diary of a Sapper” by Julian Beirne.

Our Lieutenant would take us on long walks around the hills surrounding Stanley, to see the battle fields and minefields left by the Argentineans. Most minefields by then were fenced off and only the carcasses of dead sheep, who would get under or past the wire fences and wander aimlessly across the minefield, until the leader was launched skywards by a mine. They would freeze, Baa, and then move forwards, until the next was launched skywards and so on, until they moved out of the field again. Twats. Now I have committed some stupid acts, but none so stupid as our Lieutenant, who along with a few of the others, decided where the throwing of heavy objects (rocks) would be enough to set off a mine!! Honestly, they threw rocks until I think our Sgt spotted them and had a discreet word in the Lt’s ear. Twats!! Times 2.

Port Stanley was a bit of a shit hole back then, apart from the one shop, and the hotel there was bugger all to do. The islanders had welcomed the British Forces rapturously and well deserved that welcome was, but some 18months in, the welcome was wearing a bit thin, as drunken squaddies were eventually banned from the town in the evenings (too noisy and rude) and unwelcome to a great extent in town during daylight hours as well. The islanders had been named “Benny’s” after the character of Benny from the ITV Soap Opera Crossroads, for those non British readers; basically Benny was thick, large and smelly looking. This links shows a quick movie clip of him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq8MsQ0AcLo.

The islanders had no idea who Benny was as they did not get ITV television programmes, well, not until Video’s started appearing, sent by families to their husbands and wives serving on the island. Then they found out who Benny was and an order was posted that calling Islanders Benny’s was to cease forthwith as they were now aware of who Benny was and had taken exception to this. They were then called “Stills”, as they were “Still Benny’s”. Squaddie humour sometimes is best to ignore.

After a few weeks of unloading ships full of construction gear, loading helicopters with the same and endless days of boredom, the “exciting” news came through that Jim Davidson, a British stand up comedian, was coming down for a series of shows. The Coastel had a large Gym in the roof space and this was to be the theatre. Jim was coming down accompanied by female dancers (woohoo), Bob Carolgees and Spit the Dog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKjPosgpxlw&feature=related.
I was walking back to the Coastel one afternoon and Jim was being dropped off so I saluted him and he saluted me right back, gosh I was proud!! The Argentineans’ had left all sorts of kit when they were kicked off the islands, amongst the crap were jeeps made by Mercedes Benz, which knocked the spots off the Army Land Rovers, so anyone who was anyone (officer types) were driven around in those and the good old Land Rovers were left to the rest of us. After a while, jeep parts became a problem, so the higher your rank, the better your chance of keeping your Merc, as your driver would cannibalise the Jeeps of the lower ranked Officers.

Our Coastel

Jim Davidson was driven around in a Merc of course, much to the distaste of the Officers. Jim referred to them as Rupert’s and sided at all times with the lower ranks and so was cheered wherever he went. He even played cowsheds in far off villages like Goose Green and San Carlos Bay and was a brief ray of light to us all, as we wanted to slag off the officers, but of course could not. He was disliked by the officers from the off and pissed them off at meal times as he would prefer to eat with the lads.
We flew to Goose Green for a few weeks working on a helicopter refuelling depot. We lived in porta-cabins and used large earthmoving diggers to excavate earthworks which we lined with plastic and then dropped huge rubber bladders which were filled with air-fuel. They invariably leaked and we stank of kerosene for days at a time. Nights were spent lying in our sleeping bags listening to Sony Walkmans and playing cards.

Update: -
In the battle for Goose Green and number of the Parachute Regiment lost their lives.  The picture here is the memorial and grave site where these brave men are buried, among them Colonel H Jones.

One light moment was when we challenged the RAF boys to a game of soccer. I have attached some photos of this game, hope they come out!

The pitch was marked out and we played a great game, with our guys doing really well, until some twat decided that it was a good place to land his helicopter, right in the centre circle! Staff Sgt Gallagher walked up to the copter and enquired what the guy thought he was doing? Apparently, our pitch was the helicopter landing area and we had to stop our game whilst the pilot and some bigwigs marched off into Goose Green for meeting with the Stills. Game resumed after an hour or so and we won I recall. Just up from the pitch and across a dirt track (the motorway between San Carlos and Goose Green) was an airfield with grass runways. Littered around one end were 2 Pucara’ Ground Attack Aircraft, anti aircraft ground to air rocket launchers and machine guns and various bits of kit. We had a fine time clambering all over it, again see the attached pics.

We went back to Port Stanley and played annoy the Benny (Still) and after a month of such fun, we were told we were to board the Landing Ship Logistic (LSG) Sir Geraint (they were all named after King Arthurs Round Table Knights, Galahad and Lancelot etc).


We sailed off and after 2 days were at anchor outside the somewhat inappropriately named (seeing as there were no women anywhere) Shag Cove. We were airlifted off the ship along with our kit to a disused and pretty decrepit old sheep farmers holding, which consisted of a farmhouse a couple of outhouses, a well and a paddock or two. Our task, as tradesmen, was to renovate the whole lot into liveable accommodation for future groups of squaddies to use as an R&R base (Rest and Recuperation). Basically, this would consist of being dropped off with enough food and beer to last 2 days and left to your own devices. There was an almost landlocked bay (Shag Cove) about 300 metres away and plenty of good hills to walk! How fun! In fact the cove was about 400 metres across and 800 metres long. The water was so shallow you could walk across it and it actually looked as if you were walking on water.

Our group consisted of electricians, bricklayers, carpenters, painters, plumbers, basically all the artisan trades required and within a few days, timber, boarding, bricks, paint, nails, pipes, you name, turned up. Staff Sergeant Gallagher was our senior NCO and we bedded down in the rooms we would later be doing up. Things swiftly moved on and it was decided that the main room in the building would be the bar and lounge and would be called the Skulls Room. This was down to the fact that the area all around was littered with the bones of dead sheep and the odd pony. The skulls were taken back to the house, painted white; bulbs fitted into the eye sockets and hung up on the walls. Class.........

As the work approached its final two or three weeks, (we’d dug the well out again and got the wind pump working) a delivery of beer (loads of it) turned up by helicopter. The copters were mainly run by Bristow’s, a civilian contractor, but there were plenty of military copters buzzing around as well. The Bristow’s would ferry men and mail around the islands and in our case, shed loads of beer. To celebrate a game of indoor rugby was commenced. That was once everyone was truly drunk and up for a fight in most cases. The ball was a load of black tape wound around paper to resemble a rugby ball. The game rules were, beat the fuck out of each other before someone beat the fuck out of you. There were no “goals” to put the ball in, all you had to do was hold onto the ball and avoid a serious twatting. Being (as my Mum would say) of a sensitive disposition, I aimed to avoid the ball, and fists, by gamely circling the ensuing melee’ and occasionally leaping onto bodies, slapping someone and then quickly withdrawing, lest I be clouted. This tactic worked well, until the bloke I was sat astride of rolled over and I lay flat on my back, but worse, I was somehow holding the ball. Bollocks!

I sat up and threw the ball away, but both my legs were straight out in front of me, my feet pointing upwards towards the ceiling. One of the larger members of the group decided to launch himself at me but was sideswiped by another and they fell across my feet, pushing the toes of the right foot back towards my shin and therefore stretching the tendons and more flimsy content of my foot to breaking point. The pain was of a sort I had yet to experience and I yelled out for them to “get the fuck off” and tried to pull myself backwards across the floor. More bodies piled in to the scrum and I was left screaming like a girl as time and again my toes met shin. Try it sometime. It’s not good.

I eventually managed to manoeuvre myself away and called over Sgt Gallagher and in between tears told him what had happened. I was picked up and carried to my sleeping bag, on the floor of another room and a few of my mates came in to see me. My foot was killing me and Sgt Gallagher said he thought it was broken. Now these words were slurred as he was more pissed then most and I had quickly sobered up. Sarge decided to check for breaks by asking the guys to move aside, he took hold of my foot and proceeded to move it back and forth, side to side. He stopped as soon as I smacked him in the mouth (where I got the bravery to do that I don’t know) and said “yep, that’s a break”. I was bought coffee and cigarettes and made comfortable. There was no morphine or pain killer of any type in the first aid bag, but hey, we did have our rifles and ammunition, just in case the Argies attacked again, so basically we could fight the buggers off, but were we to be wounded, we were screwed.

I tried to sleep, but occasionally some pissed up squaddie would try to climb over me to get into his pit, kick me and receive a verbal and a slap for good measure. Come the morning, a call was made to Port Stanley on the radio for a Casualty Evacuation and a Puma turned up mid-afternoon and flew me back to Stanley. The “hospital” (a collection of tents) was next to the heli-port and I was taken on a stretcher into A&E. X-rays revealed no breaks but torn ligaments and tendons, so I was given light duties, a pair of crutches and some strapping and sent down to the Coastel.
The one thing good to come of this was that I was no longer able to run around, mending roads, clearing up and generally getting in the shit, so I was assigned to the CSB (Combat Support Boat Section), which was as easy a number as one could hope for. See Picture of me outside my new home.

Having passed the course anyway it seemed stupid to me that I was not assigned there anyway, until told that the competition to get into that section was huge and I could expect not to join at anytime, by the CSM (Company Sgt Major). So he was not too impressed at being told to assign me to the CSB team.

So, my roommates were on another island, I was onto a cushy number, had no one to bother me, could sleep in most days and was getting tons of mail from Tina, back in Chatham, who was including plenty of saucy photos, to keep me going. In charge of the CSB Section, was one Corporal Farmer or Flapper Farmer to everyone who knew him better. Flapper was so laid back and easy going (from the West Country, so that may explain it) it was ridiculous. He gave not one shit for anyone higher ranking than he and to top it off, would get gloriously drunk at any time and given any opportunity.
Needless to say, he and I would get along famously and so well in fact that the next blog will be almost entirely dedicated to our exploits down South!

A Sailors Life for me! Not Bloody Likely!! -1984

Going on leave was always something to look forward to and I made sure I always used my allowance. I usually used my annual flight allowance, but once that was used up, I would grab a lift with mates going home and pay my share of the fuel. We did not need passports, as our Military ID Card, served the same purpose. I also had an HM Forces Railcard, for reduced fares on the trains.

One year, I car shared with 3 others from my Squadron and we drove across Germany and down to Zeebrugge in Belgium. The journey was uneventful until we arrived at the port, where I realised I had left my ID card back in Neinburg. All I had was my Railcard, so decided to chance it and see if I could get across using that, as it had my picture on it. We drove up to the Ferry entrance way and were asked for passports, whereupon my mates brandished theirs and I feebly passed across my Railcard. The immigration officer looked at me and asked where my ID card was, I told him, and he asked me out of the car. We went into the little office and he asked me a few questions about why I had left it back in camp, (by mistake!), why I was travelling (going on leave!) and when I was returning (1 weeks time). He said he’d let me travel, but could not promise that the UK Immigration people would let me in.

I took a chance and we drove onto the ferry. We arrived at Dover and drove off the ferry into Immigration, where I again produced my Railcard. The guy on duty said fine, through you go and that was it. I was home again. Andy Hill, the guy whose car we travelled in, lived just outside Norwich and we dropped the others off along the way until we reached Hethersett, his village, which is 5 miles away from my mum’s house. The cheapskate dropped me off on the road outside his village and I had to hitch the last 5 miles! Back then, a short haircut and an Army kitbag more or less guaranteed a lift within minutes and so it proved. I was in my mum’s house, eating dinner and relaying my trip to her. Julian had by now moved out and was living in a squat, quarter of a mile away from home, with his girlfriend. So I had my old bedroom and knocked about with mates who I met in Norwich.

Around this time 1983/1984, Wham! were the big thing and I was a big fan, so much so that I would style myself (dress wise not hair wise, well not yet anyway), on George Michael. I met a few people who remarked that I looked not too dissimilar to George, which at the time, given his then heterosexual nature, felt pretty cool and I paraded around in cut-off jeans, white t-shirts or shirts and espadrilles (very Club Tropicana), whenever the weather allowed. Back in Germany, my army colleagues evidently took this style of dress, to mean that I was gay and Mick Hayes (good guy, good laugh) would spend hours coming up with new and amusing ways of addressing me, examples being; Lemon Meringue Benty Piece/Boy, Bender, Fruit Pie Bendy Boy, Knob Jockey etc.

The banter was light hearted and given my obvious and well publicised experiences with the local and not so local girls, I was never in danger of being pilloried in a nasty way. Unlike for instance a couple of guys, one in our squadron, the other in 4 Field Squadron, who were caught, by the Guard Patrol, one buried into the other. The excuse of, “I slipped and fell on him”, met deaf ears and they were both installed in cells in the guardroom, subsequently charged, fined, imprisoned and dishonourably discharged from the Army.

My leave was coming to an end and I met up with Andy and we drove back to Dover. My Uncle Derek (Dad’s brother) at this time worked for Townsend –Thoresen the Ferry Company and my cunning plan, to be allowed to travel without “ze correct papers”, involved asking him to get involved with the higher echelons at Dover and allow me to travel. Turned out he was the head of training and had no swing whatsoever. But, not knowing this, I had the lads drop me outside the entrance to the immigration room and they carried on with my gear in the car and got onto the ferry. I then begged immigration to let me travel, called Uncle Derek, who as we now know, could not help and with time running out got the immigration men to let me get on the ferry.

The problem was that the ferry was 5 minutes away if I ran like the wind and as I set off could see the ferry closing up. When I was 14-15 years old I loved cross country and the army had improved my stamina quite a lot, but, when your goal starts to move away from you and you realise that you may not make it, well, my guts turned to water. I ran across the roads in the ferry terminal and started up the ramp towards the ferry. The ramp led into the car deck, but the ropes had been dropped and she was actually inching away from the dock. My mates stood as close to the edge as possible and I ran as fast as I could and leapt across clear water landing in a heap on the car deck. I had only just made it and the leap had been a good distance, one that if I had had a minute to consider it, I would probably not have tried. The crew and my mates lead a round of applause as I lay in a jellied heap on the deck panting for air.

Ironically, once we docked in Belgium, we were waved through and travelled without further problems all the way back to Neinburg. I was due to go back to the UK again for my Craft Operators course, before my tour of duty in the Falkland Islands and headed back, this time by plane as it was a course, a few months later. At Chatham they bunked me in a dorm for 10 men, on my own, cool I thought, until I remembered I had no alarm clock and being a crap at waking up, had to trek off to the NAAFI to buy one. My course (Craft Op Specialist) was an 8 week course run at Chatham and included amongst others, Ricky Evans the Welsh Rugby Union Player (then in my squadron and then Corporal Evans) who went onto win 19 international caps. He is now a Buddhist and fire-fighter. There were also 3 Ghurkhas and a selection of other Sappers from across the regiment’s squadrons.

The course taught us how to use every craft the Royal Engineers had at their disposal, from small outboards right up to the Combat Support Boat itself. A few facts on the boat; it is powered by twin Sabre Marine 212 Turbo Charged Diesel engines, that powered twin Dowty two stage Hydro Jets, giving a top speed of over 30mph when fully loaded (45mph+ unloaded) and could stop dead in the water in its own length from top speed, if the driver knew what he was doing. Highlight of the course was a cabbie out along the Medway across the Thames Reach to Southend Pier and back.

The seas were fairly rough but we made it there and back, everyone wanting to drive the thing. Put it this way, it was a cool bit of kit. Because the craft had these hydro jet engines, it could turn on it own axis and could be controlled with the sticks that angled the jets instead of the wheel. Delicate touches on the throttles and jets achieved really neat results. One test (pass or you were RTU – returned to Unit) was to edge the craft up to a large buoy, leave the cab, walk around the front and step off the boat and onto the buoy without the boat leaving you stranded. Course finished it was back to Germany for a few months before our move to Port Stanley.

Once back at camp, my compatriots all rushed to tell me that Mark (my best friend you’ll remember) had been seeing Heidi, and they revelled in telling me that he had been seeing her in a Biblical fashion, if you will. I know they expected me to get all Rambo about it; they wanted to see me charge across the camp, launch into Mark and sort it out. Problem for them was that I was no more annoyed than had I stubbed my toe. I did like Heidi a great deal, but I was not about to get out of sorts with my best friend, given that I had not written or called her whilst away and that I had been shagging a girl in the Women’s Royal Army Corp (WRAC’s) whilst at Chatham, who was a Corporal called Tina.

Tina went onto write to me weekly whilst I was in the Falklands, with me getting all excited about seeing her when I got back to the northern hemisphere, only to get a Dear John (you are ditched) letter, a week before we travelled back. Probably for the best, but the letters were rather fruity to say the least, as were the pictures she posted in them, which really pissed of the green brains (blokes who bleed green blood they are so army), as they only got letters from their mums and dads, if they were lucky. Heidi and i had drifted apart and we started seeing other people, Mark met another girl to and that was that.

Our tour (posting) to the Falklands started somewhat boringly, a very early wake up, to clamber onto trucks for a trip to the airport and a flight to Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. We got off that plane and onto a DC10, for another flight to the Ascension Islands in the mid Atlantic and then a helicopter transfer from the island and onto the MV Keren. Some interesting points about that journey are; we had to refuel the DC10 in Dakar Airport, Senegal. If you wanted to smoke (I did), you had to get off the plane and sit alongside the runway, about 200 metres from the plane. It was the middle of the night and there was not a light anywhere as I trudged down the covered steps onto the tarmac. I was met by the blackest face I have ever seen (not unusual for Africa). All I could make out were the whites of his eyes and his big whiter than white smiling teeth as he welcomed us to Senegal and directed us across to the smoking area. Please don’t take that to mean I am racist, as I am as far from racist as it’s possible to be, just relating the story.

We sat and smoked, I lay back, my head against my backpack and I studied the stars. I awoke to see the last of my “mates” skipping up the steps onto the plane. The bastards had left me there, hoping I would not wake up until the DC10 thundered above my head. I jumped up and sprinted onto the plane, all of them jeering me as I walked down to my seat. We took off and flew onwards to Ascension, which is basically a runway on a rock. We were barely on land for five minutes before being uplifted by Sea King across to the Keren.

The MV Keren was an ex-Sealink car ferry called “HMS St Edmunds”, a civilian ship commissioned as the Military Vessel Keren after much wrangling with the Seaman’s Union and some skulduggery by the Royal Navy. She sailed down to Ascension and her job was to ferry troops from Ascension to Port Stanley (start of tour) and back to Ascension (end of tour). The problem with the Keren was that she was a North Sea Ferry, not really built for the high rollers of the Atlantic and therefore, not the most comfortable vessel to take to the high seas in. I have a good stomach for sailing, but others amongst our party did not and the slightest choppy wave would find the decks heaving (literally) with the stomach contents of fellow travellers.

The Keren had a flat keel, so that she did not “cut” through waves, but went up them and slammed down the other side. The “cinema and bar” were located as far forward as possible, when she went up a wave, you grabbed your beer, as when she slammed down the other side, the whole ship vibrated, sending anything not nailed down flying. The highlight of the trip down south was when I got up one morning really early and wandered up to the deck near the hastily installed helicopter platform. The ships tended to carry civilians of all descriptions as well, civil servants, TV crews, wildlife experts etc. I bumped into this guy who was travelling to the Falklands to study the wildlife population and the affects the war had had on it. We stood chatting, looking out to sea, when this huge whale breached some 100 metres away from the ship. The animal launched out of the ocean to some half of its body length and slapped back down in a spectacular show of strength and beauty. It continued to do this for some time, with the wildlife guy next to me, hastily taking pictures for all he was worth.

The ship docked in Stanley harbour (shallow hull meant it could enter quite safely) and we traipsed down the gangway to be met by a line up of soldiers preparing to get on board. The jeers and name calling they gave, quickly confirmed to us that this was not to be the choicest of postings, 6 months and 10,000 miles away from home. The time I was to spend there was to be filled with adventure, boredom, pain, hilarity, anger and sheer frustration. And its story is coming your way in the next blog!

Cakes and Pies, Beers and Beatings - 1983

Back in Germany I had started to venture into town most weekends and evenings. I had hooked up with Mark Cameron, who was in another Squadron at Neinburg and as he had been in Germany some time, he deemed it only right and proper to show me around the local area. Hannover could always be relied upon to provide endless hours of entertainment, starting with the train station itself. The train station (Bahnhof) was a two storey affair, trains came in over the top of the pedestrian area below and the pedestrian area led into the City, under the roads and on into the main shopping areas, with bars and cafe’s lining the walkway and Bars and taverns lining the streets. Back in 1983 Germany, cafe’ culture was already in full flow, whereas in England, you were lucky to get a beer garden, with a shitty little swing for the kids, dog shit in the grass and splinters in the bench seats!

Mark and I would both approach our respective sergeants on a Friday afternoon, and request that we be allowed to sign out early. After some months of being asked the same questions every Friday, they simply nodded as opposed to firing back a series of questions as to why we wanted to leave early. We managed to co-ordinate our preparations and would arrive at the guardroom to sign out within minutes of one another, this was pre mobile phones.

For some while Mark had been going to a town called Wunstorf, a very quaint little market town between Neinburg and Hannover. Mark had a girlfriend called Tina and I was introduced to her friend Monika. For a few months our forays to Wunstorf at weekends would usually result in our crashing at Monika’s in her parent’s cellar. Monika had her own lounge cum bedroom, (a number of mattress’ on the floor) and we’d all (at least 5 couples) dive under duvets and commence banging away like a fiddlers elbow. On one occasion her father, a rather austere looking bloke, walked into the room and started shouting at Monika. We thought we were shit out and expected to see a shotgun materialise from behind his back, turned out he was merely enquiring as to what time we’d be up for breakfast.

Our afternoons would be spent either at one of our girlfriends houses, or in town, sat outside a bar and our evenings would be spent at Formel Ein’s nightclub. On route, we would call into a little bar (the name escapes me), where the barman stood in the centre of the room and the bar itself circled around the room, with only enough room to get a stool and probably one person stood behind it. The great thing about this was that you looked directly across the bar to the other people there and could more or less scan the entire place from your perch at the bar, and that was where I spotted Heidi. From that moment onwards, Monika was an ex-girlfriend, heartless bastard? Yes.

Heidi was stunning. A brunette, with looks not dissimilar to Angelina Jolie’s (if I say so myself and I am hardly going to fancy a minger am I?). At the time Heidi was seeing a squaddie called Sid, that was not his real name but he looked a punk rocker of sorts so was named after Sid Vicious. Sid was not particularly attentive and any opportunity I got, I was round the other side of the bar talking to her. Eventually, she ditched Sid and we started seeing each other. Heidi lived at that time with her parents; her father was Iranian (Persian) and her mother German. She was 18 years old, could speak Persian, German (of course), English, French and Italian. I was something of the cunning linguist myself, a perfect match.

We’d all move on from that bar to Formel Ein’s and proceed to dance the night away, drinking Blue Bols and Orange Juice (Laubfrach (sic). It was neither highly alcoholic nor particularly nice, but was the fashion in that bar and we all drank it, along with lager. After some weeks, Heidi moved out of her parents and lodged with a German academic scientist chap. Deiter was going through a divorce, knew Heidi well and gave her a room in his apartment in Wunstorf. I spent many an evening exploring Heidi in that apartment and explore her I did. She was an adventurous girl who liked to experiment and I was in my element.

Mark’s squadron was posted to the Falklands garrison in 1983 and during his absence I teamed up with Paul Evans and Andrew Cruickshank (in my squadron) – Paul had a Volkswagen Golf. I also made friends of Ginge Anderson and Ginge Rothwell ...who also had cars. I had a tracked vehicle licence (an H licence) but not a car licence, (funny how I could drive a 16 ton tank but not a 1 ton car), but that did not stop me borrowing theirs and spinning over to Wunstorf to be with Heidi. One of the girls from Neinburg, who liked squaddies (if you know what I mean), was called Sylvia. She quickly became known as Syphilis Sylvia for obvious reasons, but Ginge Rothwell saw something in her that others didn’t (plenty of antibiotics) and married her.

With Mark away in the Falklands, apart from regular trips to Wunstorf, I spent more time in camp and Neinburg. One weekday evening after a series of departures from our dorm, (Royal Engineers get new postings on an individual basis, as opposed to other corps and regiments, who move on mass to new postings), I found myself with more bed space and a large piece of furniture that comprised a bookcase and cupboard. I acquired some white gloss paint and started painting the thing. Titch Winder appeared and asked me along with a few others if we fancied a saunter down to Treff Punkt for lagers with a side order of frauleins. I declined, given my ongoing painting and with Heidi waiting for me in Wunstorf!

Titch moaned and whined for a while, went off to find anyone else who would go, then came back and whined some more. Eventually I agreed to go, but it would not be a late one. I changed and off we walked, down the road towards the bar. When we walked in, there were a few people gathered around the tall tables by the windows, a few at the bar and some girls dancing at the back of the room. We got some beers and wandered over to the girls (as you do) and started chatting to them and dancing when required, as Titch felt he was definitely in with a chance with one of them.

The evening went on, more beer, more chatting with Titch becoming increasingly hormonal and me becoming increasingly bored and after a few hours of this, I decided it was time to leave and told Titch I was going back to camp. Titch, assuming that it was probably a lost cause agreed and we walked around the bar towards the door, passing between the tall tables in front of the glass windows and the bar itself. I looked across to Tony (the owner) waved and glanced to my left at a group of men stood at one of the tables.

The feeling when I was struck by the cosh was odd in that it did not hurt. I probably said something like “fucker” and put my hand up to the side of my head, then looking at the blood on my palm, before being struck again with even more force in the same place and staggering towards the door, where I turned to see Titch looking at me open mouthed and this German guy in a black leather coat with two others beside him, walking towards me. It later transpired that Titch was chatting to a girl he fancied, but as I had looked at him on the way out, I was to take the beating. He proceeded to rain blows onto my head whilst Tony and a few others (no bouncers back then) tried to get him off. Titch ran outside, opened a cab door (most cabs in Germany were Mercedes) and ran back to drag me into the back of the car.

My new friend with the cosh was obviously not finished and decided to pull one of the tall tables off its base and threw it through the plate glass windows of the bar and clambering through the doorway he created, climbed into the back of the cab after me. The driver took a look at the demented German, decided he’d seen enough and got out. I was pulling myself across the rear seat, claret going everywhere and Titch was opening the other passenger door and trying to pull me out the other side of the cab, whilst I took a series of blows from Boris. I did not lose consciousness throughout this time and remember the sounds of police sirens and ambulances as Boris finally decided enough was enough and disappeared into the night. Just as I was getting pissed off and was going to have a right go at the bastard as well!

I was laid out in the street, bleeding and bruised, with Titch running around whimpering that it was his fault entirely as he had convinced me to go out that night, too bloody right it was. I was scooped (mopped) up and put in the ambulance and we departed for the Krankenhaus (hospital), Titch by my side (still whimpering) and me offering him sympathy for his poor decision making capabilities. I entered the hospital and was x-rayed, prodded and poked by various people, ending up in critical care, with a series of hairline skull fractures and being put to sleep for my own good. Titch went back to camp with a tail to tell.

I do not know how long I was in the hospital for; I remember various visitors and sleeping for quite some time and being awoken by a sadist doctor who tested my reflexes by running his pen up the sole of my foot, very hard, to which he was told to take his pen and shove it (or words to that effect). I was discharged and returned to camp on light duties (whenever someone is ill, they report to the camp Doctor, who can prescribe light duties or not) and used the time to recuperate. Titch was still apologising mind you and I had to tell him to shut up as I was over it by then.

I was still seeing Heidi, who had no idea what had happened and assumed I had gone on an exercise, fat chance. Ginge Anderson and I, (he was on light duties as well for being fat I think) were given a 4 tonne truck and spent the later part of the summer driving back and forth between Army and RAF camps in northern Germany, picking up and dropping off post, equipment and people and generally getting as much time out of camp as possible. Mark Cameron eventually returned from the Falklands with stories to tell and he and I started visiting Hannover far more. Mark had met a girl called Lydia (Lulu) and along with Heidi, we spent our time visiting various beds and when able to stand, wading through tables of cakes, baked at home by their friends Mums and then more time at either Heidi’s or Lulu’s eating pie!

Mosquitos, Strippers, Mormons and Me - 1983

I settled into life in Germany fairly easily. I mean, what’s so hard about getting up, getting breakfast cooked for you, meeting outside with you mates, and getting orders for the day that usually involved cleaning various bits of kit until lunch, a run, maybe the assault course, some more cleaning, dinner, then the times your own. Someone in the room would have a TV that a number of us would congregate around. Programming was provided by the British Forces Broadcasting Company and was typically BBC fair; they also had a radio station that broadcasted across the BAOR (British Army on the Rhine). One guy kept Piranhas in a huge tank at the end of his bed and would feed them live goldfish, which was usually more entertaining than the TV.

Unless you had pulled Guard duty, then the nights and weekends were your own and that meant exploring beyond the confines of camp and the squadron bar. I was not keen on the squadron bar; I did not mix in with the typical squaddie as I found their more boisterous behaviour a bit heavy duty for my liking. I was not wimping out and played many a game of indoor rugby, suffering a badly damaged ankle one time. There were a few other like minded guys I was to find out later.

Before any personally organised excursions could take place though, we (Mick Hayes, myself and a few other newbies), were taken out on the town for a tour of the local bars and clubs as induction to the Squadron. Chief amongst these were Treff Punkt, Blondies and the Weser Pub. Tradition had it that we had to drink a selection of the local beers, wines and spirits and manage to return to camp. Amongst the drinks taken that night were Ratzenpuss (unsure of spelling) that was watered down with Tabasco Sauce! The better known Jagermeister, served from the freezer and various schnapps such as Apfelkorn , and Asbach Uralt brandy etc. Ratzenpuss (sic) was a truly horrid concoction, drunk only under orders and as we traipsed around Neinburg, I got a terrible feeling in my gut that the night was not going to end well, unless I managed a tactical withdrawal or came up with a plan to reduce the possibility of serious illness and internal injury to my colon.

Treff Punkt had a disco set up and the bar was bang in the centre of the room, there were tables on a single pole leg and stools around them dotted about the bar. The place was usually full of squaddies and we walked in and were taken straight up to meet Tony, the owner. The order of the day was a large Stein of beer and a short, probably vodka, to ease into the evenings activities. We then headed off to the centre of town and the Weser Pub. Beers were ordered and we were then told to line up. The barman took a litre beer stein and filled it with one of each spirit along the bar. We were presented with a glass each and told to down it in one.

My plan, formed as we walked around town, was to down it and then eject it asap in the bar’s toilet. The concoction was foul as it went down my throat; I gagged but got it down. One of the lads ran outside and deposited his all over the pavement. I made it to the toilet, stuck my fingers down my throat and sent the lot off to the sewerage farm. Problem was that no matter how quick you did that, some alcohol still got into your system and I ended the night, eating currywurst, pissed, and sitting on the floor outside the fast food shop.

I noticed that it was a good idea to learn to drive a panzer (Armed Personnel Carrier), APC 432. Why? Well for a start off it was fun, steering a 16 ton piece of Chobham Armour around the Germany countryside, you got out of most tasks on exercise, such as bridge building, as it was your job to drive and cook, whilst the team on board, built and slept. When it came to laying minefields, (practising), a mine laying plough was attached to the back of the vehicle, the door (at the back was open) and two of the team would load barmines (a metre long piece of cardboard, shaped like a land mine) onto a conveyer belt, which laid the mine into a trench, dug by the plough, the thing then covered the mine with soil and two guys walked either side and made sure it was fully covered.

Driving a panzer was a piece of piss really. An accelerator, two tillers for steering, an automatic gear box and a dead man’s pedal, behind the tillers, that cut the fuel to the engine, in case the thing decided to ran away with itself, as they were prone to do. The other sweet deal about the training was that at the back garages, was a car park. Any squaddie who had a car that had passed it’s used by date, simply left them parked there. If no one claimed them, we would drive over them to crush them down.

One aspect of being on exercise in Germany, was that sometimes, the squadron would go on bridge gallops, which entailed driving to a location, by a river, building a bridge, driving over it, along with a couple of other infantry regiments, who we supported, such as the guards and the tank regiments, then taking it apart, loading it onto the trucks and going to the next location. This was knackering work for the guys, as often six or seven bridges would be built over a 4 or 5 day period. Usually, we kept to the training grounds, Soltau and Celle, but sometimes we’d go across farmer’s fields to reach the river. The farmers were compensated for the loss of crops and occasionally asked for us to drive through their field if the crop return was going to be crap, as the compensation was greater than the value of the crop.

In June of 83, we headed over to Canada, to take part in live firing exercises at BATUS (British Army Training Unit, Suffield) in Alberta. It was close to Medicine Hat and we were allowed to nip over there at weekends. The live firing consisted of all the weapons we had at our disposal, including anti Tank weapons, machine guns, and rifles and using live explosives to blow shit up. Problem with BATUS in the summer was out on the prairie, it was a mosquito cafe and we were on the menu. Taking a crap was a nightmare because as soon as you dropped your pants, what looked to be the whole of the mosquito family on the prairie would rise as one and head towards your bare arse. So a juggling act of rubbing mosquito repellent on your bum, whilst squirting the buggers with another repellent bottle, laying cable and wiping your bum took place.

The prairie also had its fair share of snakes and Mick Hayes was scared to death of them. We found a dead one in a wagon rut and when he was taking a kip in the back of the tank, we carefully placed it on his chest, facing him. We then woke him and said “Mick, don’t move mate, there is a snake on you”. He shat himself, sprang up and shot out of that panzer and ran off into the wilderness. We promptly shat ourselves laughing. That’s the last of the poo stories for now!

On the exercise, we had the task of wiring a steel girder bridge with Plastic Explosive. PE4 smells like marzipan, but work with it long enough with bare hands and you get a blinding headache. Using blocks of wood and steel wire, each charge was shaped and attached to the girders; we then retreated into a bunker a few hundred feet away. The detonation was overseen by safety officers from the base and they parked their land rovers just behind the bunker. The bunker was underground, flush with the land, so the jeeps were exposed to the blast. The safety officer gave the order to “wait”, which some joker with the shrike (detonation trigger) took for “blow it up” and promptly pressed the buttons that sent the electrical message to the detonators. A huge boom went off, followed by some highly explosive language as pieces of steel flew past the land rovers and the exposed safety officers above us. For once, I was NOT at fault...............

Medicine Hat City had a water slide park on the outskirts, which we soon got bored of and in the centre of town was the Assiniboia Inn (this place had and has legendary status in the Army). Back in 1983, the place would be crammed as every day, all day, they had strippers on. Canadian laws state that if you order a beer at the bar, you must stay at the bar to drink it. If you do decide to move through the room to a table, you have to ask a waitress to carry your beer for you. We’d order jugs of beer and settle down for an afternoon of free (really) strippers. One stripper could shoot ping pong balls across the room (use your imagination as to what the firing mechanism was), another did a show to the music from the Muppets TV programme, with Animal the drummer as her helper, (he looked pretty pissed off to me) and you could always guarantee that some drunken squaddie would cause or get involved in a fight.

At the end of the tour, we were given 4 days R&R (Rest and Recuperation). Myself, Andy Orton, Titch Winder and Paul Evans (may have been others but cannot recall), jumped on a greyhound bus and went from Medicine Hat, through Calgary and on into the Rockies. We stopped at Lake Louise (fantastic) and drove on to stay in Kelowna, a town on the Okanagan Lake. The town and the scenery was beautiful , our motel was right on the water and we’d spend nearly every day, lazing in the lake, drinking beers held in brown paper bags (yep, you had to hide your beer in public) and generally causing mischief where we could. There were loads of small house boats moored on the lake and we decided that one would make a good diving platform. We were happily throwing ourselves into the lake, when this guy pitches up in his motorboat and asks us what we thought we were doing. We apologised, said who we were and once he knew we were soldiers, took us over to his house on the lake, organised the beers and took us up in his own water plane for a flight over the mountains and the lake.

Whilst in Kelowna, I bumped into this gorgeous girl. She was on holiday with her mum and I asked her out for a drink. Her Mum told me in no uncertain terms that they were Mormons and did not drink nor smoke. That was merely a challenge to me, one I had to live up to and I proceeded to not only succeed in getting her away from her mum, but also managed to help her break both the rules her mum had told me about. She also told me that Mormons did not believe in sex before marriage, but that rule got well and truly busted too as I ended up lying in my hotel bed, drinks by the bedside, ash tray on my chest, with smokes on the go and her lying next to me. Dazed, confused and satisfied (hopefully).

Ah Canada.