Archive: “Army”

At the age of eighteen I was required to endure a seemingly interminable period as a National Service soldier. This was in fact two years, but seemed like ten! I received a foretaste of the treatment I could expect at the hands of the military, when I reported for medical assessment to Blackheath Medical Centre. […]

Winter was also the time of the Saturday morning cross-country run. This was decreed to be a “scale A” parade which meant that no-one could avoid it. Even those whom the M.O. had placed on “light duties” were found some sort of job, such as acting as waymarkers along the route. They would be attired […]

Due, no doubt to his observation of our performance on the square, the Adjutant decided that the standard of drill of Support Company was below par. He therefore conceived the brilliant notion of holding a drill competition between the four platoons of which the company was comprised. Accordingly, over the next few weeks our Platoon […]

It is July 17th 2003 and I am very frustrated! I have just had a report from the site search engine to the effect that someone visited my site and used the search term “smokey funnel”. “Smokey” Funnel was a corporal in Support Company, Mortar Platoon if my memory serves me well. I certainly know […]

Further to the R.E.M.E Sergeant story, I left the workshops area and set off in what I believed to be the direction in which I would find my unit. Before I had covered many miles, the daylight began to fade and the fuel gauge with it! After travelling for some distance along a tree-lined road […]

In early April of 1956, the battalion moved, en masse, from Minden back to the UK. On the day we were due to leave we had to vacate the barrack rooms, in order that they could be officially handed over to the vanguard of the South Dorset Regt. This meant that the whole of the […]