S/2356………Pte Lawrie AGB
Memories of my National Service days…….
Just before going on National Service young 'men' of 18 (older if you had been deferred) had to go to Edinburgh for a medical and IQ tests a few months before actually going off to ‘do your bit’. After the initial tests I was told I could go into Royal Air Force but I said I would prefer the Army, (another of Alberto's inexplicable decisions) and a few weeks later got notice that I was being posted to the Royal Army Service Corps in Aldershot.
On the evening of the 7th May 1958 I set off from Kinneuchar bus stop to walk the half mile or so to Kinneuchar Station, accompanied by Jimmy Sneezby from Colinsburgh . Edinburgh was my destination where I would join the overnight train for London.
Waverley Station in Edinburgh was busy with a lot of young men carrying small suitcases heading for new horizons that evening. Every fortnight there was a ‘call up’ of new servicemen and we were part of Intake 5808. Whilst we were only starting our service others who had gone in two years earlier were coming out, or being demobbed as it was called so there was a continual change of personnel. Too soon it seemed we were all aboard our train, a steam train , and on our way. I managed to find a seat in one of the compartments, and tried to catch a bit of sleep.
London was arrived at and with that the next hurdle to overcome, - that of getting from Kings Cross to Waterloo via the London Underground. Up till now I had not managed to meet anyone else going to Ash Vale Station for Farnborough, my destination, but I assumed that, as this train was near enough full of young men with wee suitcases and real soldiers in uniform, some of my fellow travelers were Ash Vale Station, in Hampshire, bound. At Ash Vale about a dozen of us got off and were met by a Corporal and another real soldier (by the end of the day we too would be ‘real’ soldiers, or would think we were) who got us loaded onto a truck and off to our Army camp in Farnborough for our basic training.
Rumour went round that a famous name of the period, rock star Terry Dene was supposed to be one of our Intake compatriots but he never turned up – at least not on Intake 5808. I wonder what happened to him? Anyway those of us that did turn up ( very few tried to avoid call up) were to be stationed here for our first two weeks in the Army getting numbered, kitted out, more medicals, and yet more IQ type tests. Oh aye and we did our basic training there too – i.e. they taught us to march and other soldiery things. Actually sometimes it was hilarious. You would be amazed at just how many folks just cannot grasp ‘marching’ in step, and at times it was a shambles. How the Corporals must have laughed in the Corporals Club of an evening.
After the initial two weeks we were posted to different Royal Army Service Corps Training Battalions, for our Trade Training, some to be Drivers, and others to be Clerks. Brian, a lad from Birmingham who I was 'pally' with, and I were to become the latter and were posted to 2 Training Battalion just down the road in Aldershot. (The recruits chosen for driver training went to Blandford or someplace like that). Neither Brian nor myself ever thought that we would become clerks in the British Army but both of us found the idea interesting and looked forward to this completely new ‘trade’ that we were going into!
2 Training Battalion RASC…….
Aldershot turned out to be less fearsome than people had led me believe. The Drill Sergeants, Corporals and Lance Corporals at 2 Trg Bn were National Servicemen just like ourselves. Volunteering to become a Drill Instructor was one way of staying in Blighty near your loved ones etc. Our Drill Sergeant, (Sgt Broughton) was one of the best. Oh he liked you to think he was ‘hard’ but he really was a ’gentleman’ underneath and the shouting was mostly for the benefit of the Sergeant Major who was a Regular soldier. One day I overheard the Sergeant Major say to Sgt Broughton “your stripes are like autumn leaves laddie – they fall easily” so National Service drill instructors were not exactly held in high esteem by the regular soldiers. I must say that the National Service drill instructors did a great job for the British Army, and I would like to mention here our Lance Corporal, of Caribbean ancestry, who was one of the most helpful people I ever met during my two years National Service.
.At 2 Trg Bn we did guard duty and all the other ‘soldiery’ things, and by now we could march in a fairly efficient manner. We marched everywhere of course and I remember that I dropped my exercise book one time when we were marching between classes. I stepped aside and bent down to pick it up – big mistake. By the time I stood up, with book in hand I was standing beside our none too pleased (but with a smile on his face) Sergeant Broughton, because of course the rest of the ‘troops’ could not stop just because I had dropped my book. “Lawrie” says our Sarge, having by now brought everyone to a rather hasty “HALT”, and trying hard not too laugh, “when you drop a book you ‘oller “book Sergeant” and the Corporal will pick it up and give it to you when we reach w’er we are going, now get back in there”. This was all part of being in the army and part of the Sergeants ‘hard man’ act.
By now we had been to the ranges (Ash) with our rifles, and there I found my forte - I could shoot. Having been a member of the rifle club at home in Colinsburgh was a great help and hitting ‘bulls’ at 100 yards was easy. I made it into the Battalion Team, and was the ‘Best Shot’ of Intake 5808, 2 Trg Bn which got me a British Army Rifle Association medal that was presented at our Passing Out Parade.
My best memory of Aldershot was the week that the RASC had its annual shooting competition when RASC personnel came from Germany and other places to compete. The weather was perfect and I spent many a happy hour popping off rounds at targets manned by some of my mates. In the competition proper we started shooting from 600 yards (I remember getting five out of five bulls at this range, -it was that kind of day) away moving in till we were100 yards from the target which by this time looked like the side of a three storey house. One particular thing I remember about this competition were four crows that flew right across the range as we were firing....the sound of the bullets as they zipped past them must have been terrifying!
The main reason for our being at 2 Trg Bn was to turn us into clerks – and this they certainly did. One of the things they taught us was to type - touch type in fact. By the time of our last exam most of us were typing over 200 words in ten minutes, which was absolutely amazing as most of us had never even touched a typewriter let alone touch typed and all this was achieved in four weeks. The system actually worked and that was what amazed me most. They took people like Brian and me and turned us into useful clerks in that short time. I can still hardly believe just what they managed to do. Typing was the most useful thing I learnt during National Service.
At 2 Trg Bn we got our 'jabs' or inoculations before we went overseas, and this was done on a Saturday morning. Good military thinking! We lined up and moved slowly forward till we were opposite a medic armed, and I mean armed, with a needle. When you got to him you rested your hand on your waist with the arm bent at the elbow, he then used a dart type throw movement with his needle and that was you done. We were then dismissed, - and free for the weekend. About one hour later (quarter past twelve) I said to my mate in the next bed "I think I will have a kip before lunch". I woke up on Sunday at quarter past five in the afternoon - 29 hours later - absolutely starving. This happened to two of us and the other lad was still sore on Monday morning.
At the end of our training with 2 Battalion we all got posted to different places. Some of us got a choice of ‘postings’ and I was offered SHAPE in Paris, Wellington Barracks in London and another in GHQ at Aldershot. With hindsight I ought to have picked Paris but I wanted to go further from home and chose Cyprus. An inexplicable decision that I never regretted, until I had been out of the army for over twenty years, when I thought ‘why did I turn down Paris?’ I still do not know the answer to that. – except that my life has been dotted with them – inexplicable decision that is! Where Brian was sent to I do not remember but as he had a girlfriend and was engaged I think he would have stayed at home in England , so we went our different ways. I never saw him after we left 2 Battalion early in August to go home for our three weeks embarkation leave.
It was late in August 1958 that I started my journey to Cyprus, on another steam train from Kinneuchar.
Bordon Camp…..
On arrival at our new ‘holding’ camp at Bordon near Aldershot we were to spend our days working on the camp on various chores whilst waiting for the Troop ship Empire Fowey to get back from the Far East. Bernard and me were given the job of dishwashers for the camp kitchen - this was one of the best jobs to be landed with. Usually a job would be for only one week then we would be allocated another job in the camp the next week and so on. As the officer in charge of the kitchen thought we were the best dishwashers ever we kept that job for the whole of the time we were there i.e. four weeks. Both of us enjoyed our time at Bordon working in the kitchen where we got on great with all the cooks which in turn meant plenty of the best grub going!
Our evenings at Bordon were spent in the local café playing Buddy Holly records and other hits of the time. You did not put any money in the juke box as a knife could be inserted under the lid and you could set all the records going in sequence for the evening. I wonder if the owner ever found out how he never made a profit out of that juke box? We also did a bit of ‘scrumping’ at a local orchard and the spare locker in our billet was full of apples. One day our Sergeant opened the door of the spare locker, out fell a load of apples. Picking one up and taking a bite the Sergeant said ‘ I wondered why you lot looked so damn healthy’ and left us to pick up the remainder. ‘Lad’s Army’ of the TV a few years back was not very realistic as far as the RASC went!
At the weekends we would go down to Aldershot in civilian clothes to the NAAFI Club. It was always busy and sometimes got quite rowdy but I never saw anyone get really badly hurt there. Army life at Aldershot was really quite enjoyable.
The Empire Fowey……..
Eventually the troopship Empire Fowey arrived at Southhampton and we, there were seven of us Cyprus bound, left by train to join her. When we got there we, and it seemed like thousands of other service personnel, waited to board what seemed to us a massive ship. Eventually we all embarked and the Empire Fowey left the dock with much crying and waving from relatives seeing loved ones off, and hooting of the Fowey's horns like we had seen on films. The size of our ship was soon put into perspective when we were sailing out of Southampton, as the great liner the Queen Mary passed us coming in from New York and compared to her Empire Fowey was tiny. Travel by liner was still the best way in those days though that was soon to change.
Our travel papers meanwhile were in the hands of an RASC Warrant Officer who was also going to Cyprus. He conveniently did not bother to hand our names over to the Officer in charge of duties on the ship so we did not do any guard or other type of duty. 
We were ‘foot loose and fancy free’. Three of us spent most of our time with a detachment of infantry soldiers going to Singapore. They spent their time stripping down machine guns and rebuilding them at the after end of the ship, - they even offered to teach us how to do that – an offer we happily declined. We also spent a lot of time at the fore end of the ship watching the flying fish and dolphins. Our sleeping quarters were alongside a batch RAF boys who were going out to Hong Kong, so we had a really great time mixing with all and sundry but never actually doing anything official!
One day they decided to do a boat drill and we all had to make our way to our boat station. Paddy and I got lost and ended up in the first class (Officers) bit of the ship. The officers did not take part in the drill as we discovered but they were glad to show us to our station where we duly arrived about five minutes late. Paddy and I were able to give a good description of the heavily carpeted area that the Officers had, unlike the somewhat drab area that we the OR’s (other ranks) were quartered in!
The Empire Fowey sailed serenely on over the Bay of Biscay which, unusually, was like a sheet of glass and good for flying fish and dolphin watching. We seven sailed serenely with her checking out the flying fish and dolphins with great enthusiasm and regularity.
After what had been a week of 'pleasure cruising' (for us) the Empire Fowey drew to a stop in Limassol Bay and dropped anchor. A ladder was hoisted into place on the side of the ship and all who were going ashore got ready. Earlier that morning we had gone down to the secure holds and had reclaimed our rifles and kit so we were fully kitted up as we boarded a lighter for the shore. I remember sitting beside Paddy and the both of us looking down into the clear water where some fish were lazily swimming around. Paddy said ‘I could do with a nice swim’ to which I replied, ‘ not with this lot on I hope!’ The lighter moved off and we sailed over the clear and still waters to Cyprus.
Cyprus.....
When we finally landed on the island of Cyprus it was the first time that I had ever been on any place outside of the UK. It was probably the same for the other six. We got all the kit loaded onto an Army truck and I was delegated to travel ‘shotgun’ with this lorry to the transit camp in Limassol. There was a hole in the cab roof beside the driver and he told me to take my rifle and standup there and look like I knew what I was doing. I had neither clue nor bullets if anything did happen and as I was white the locals knew I had just got off the ship so whistled, booed and laughed as we drove along. The camp was on the western edge of Limassol and it took only 15 minutes or so to get there where we started to unload the lorry whilst waiting for the remainder of the ‘troops’ to arrive, which they very soon did. We did not hang around in the transit camp and very shortly we were on our way to Episkopi Garrison about 9 miles west of Limassol.
At Episkopi we were sorted out into the different offices where we were to work for the next 19 months. One of our seven Abie (who came from Musselburgh) got posted to Nicosia but the other six of us were all based at GHQ MELF. Paddy and Mick were placed in G(Ops). Another Scot, Bob from Falkirk went to work in the Garrison Sergeant Majors tent whilst the other two, Bill and Bernard, went to different offices in GHQ. I got assigned to Staff Message Control at GHQ MELF.
Staff Message Control….
As Episkopi Camp was the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Middle East Land Forces (MELF) it was huge and heavily protected from terrorist (EOKA) attack though not immune as we were to find out. Within the general camp area there was a large fenced off guarded area that contained the GHQ offices etc, within that area was another fenced off area with more guards, and within that area was a third small, fenced and heavily guarded area that contained the radio masts and signal offices plus Staff Message Control. SMC was part of the signal complex and as such was one very busy office. All signals that came into GHQ passed through our wee office and were collected from SMC by the staff from the offices of the GHQ including Navy and Air Force. Now at last I knew why we had all been positive vetted - this was really secret stuff which made it exciting and I might add, also very interesting! The 1958 civil war in Lebanon was still ongoing when I arrived in SMC. The United States had landed troops there in July 1958,(in support of the Democratic Government) so I was 'in at the deep end' as the office was really busy with both Service and political traffic, and was for a good time after the decision to withdraw from Lebanon in October. POMEF (Political Office Middle East Forces) telegrams all passed through SMC and they made the most interesting reading., and, yes they were the longest, just as you would expect from politicians I spent my first few months ‘proof’ reading the ‘Diptels’, (Diplomatic Telegrams) after they had been typed, and became adept at spelling the name of the then UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold! Time for a Dag Hammarskjold quote ….. “Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon”.
My first Christmas in Cyprus, even though SMC was busy, was good fun with a lot of laughs and general mayhem mostly, as was New Year. By now I had loads of pals from the office and we all went to the beach during our time off and even found time to go for walks though this was a bit iffy for the first 9 months I was in Cyprus as EOKA was active and there were many very serious incidents including the murder of the three sergeants in Famagusta. Going out of camp for a walk meant drawing Sten guns for self defence and we only did that once to go to the Temple of Apollo which was not too far from the camp. 
One of the lads in the office in civilian life was some kind of amateur .?…ologist and had a pair of pet preying mantis’ in a sort of fish tank affair breeding place made of cardboard and cellophane.. Soon he had hundreds of wee manti some which we kept as pets to help keep the flies down - though we had to catch the flies first and put them into the tank. The mantis may be a deadly fly catcher, but we were just as 'deadly', and the mantis family thrived on the freshly caught flies deposited live into their 'tank'. ‘Mantis’, as this lad was by now called, became one of my closest friends along with Steve a horticulturalist from Watford. SMC had loads of interesting people in it.
After much haggling Cyprus was a peaceful place at long last (1959) and we could go out and about again without guns. Steve and I got a couple of bikes one day and set off for Limassol about nine miles away. The bikes were not up to much with no gears or anything but we got there and set about a bit of tourism. Before long we noticed that we had an escort of one policeman (on a bike) with us. As ‘peace’ had only been agreed about 2 weeks previously the local Limassol Police Station had decided that it should provide us with this escort. I do not know how they knew we were going into Limassol unless the army lads at Episkopi had informed them. Steve and I were the first ‘ex enemy’ to actually take advantage of the new freedoms in this way! Anyway we set off and decided to go to the early afternoon session in the local picture house. The policeman agreed that this would be OK so we parked our old bikes and bought a couple of tickets for ‘the flicks’. Where we parked the bikes we noticed what we thought were mouse holes in the dry earth but thought no more about them. On entering the picture house we discovered that there were no two empty seats next to each other, but no problem, the manager cleared a row and allowed us to take our seats. Where the original occupants of the seats were re-seated we never found out. The picture (Shane) was the American/English version with Turkish subtitles. After the picture we thanked the manager and left to get our bikes. We now discovered that the ‘mouse’ holes we had noticed were not mouse holes but entrances to an ants nest – big ants about an inch long and they had decided it was mating time! They were everywhere so we grabbed our bikes and left them to their nuptial delights. .
Another of our biking trips saw us visit the Crusader’s tower of Kolossi Castle near Limassol. Actually the Crusaders used the castle at Kolossi as their Middle East base until they moved it to the island of Rhodes. Now I suppose it will have a Car Park, café and tourist stuff like the major attraction it is. In 1959 it stood at the end of a dusty road with a cottage type house nearby from which appeared a gentleman, lady and two small girls. We asked if we could go into the tower and they told us that we were most welcome and to go ahead. The view from the top was spectacular and the old fireplaces suggested that the monks or whoever lived here liked a bit of comfort and must have been ‘well to do’ in their day. When we left the castle the two adults were there with the wee girls. The girls came over to us and gave Steve and myself a small ‘posy’ of wild flowers that they had picked whilst we were up top - something that I remember every Armistice Day strangely enough. 
One day a few of us, including ‘Mantis’ decided to go for a walk into the interior of the island for a change. Most of the land behind the camp was dry with scrubby bushes and very little else. We wandered on till we came to a fairly deep ravine with a burn running along the bottom of it and of course Mantis wanted to go down to the burn because insect life would be more likely there, and I could see that the plant life was definitely more interesting. We two were a wee bit in front of the others so we signalled that we were going down and thought they had got the message. Down we went, but it was steeper than we thought and we soon realized that getting up was going to be another matter and somewhere else! We hollered to the lads up above that we would follow the burn inland for a bit to see if we could find a place climb out. Actually by now Mantis was in …?.ologist mode and it was about two hours before we eventually did climb out of the ravine and start to make our way home. When we did get back our pals were not too pleased with us as they had not ‘got the message’ that we were going down into the ravine, and they had not heard us hollering probably because the side of the ravine deflected our voices away from them. The drinks were on Mantis and me that night and soon we were all laughing at our escapade. But it did teach us one thing and that was to always make sure someone had ‘got the message’ about any change of plan!
There were a lot of bonnie WRAC girls in the Signal office attached to SMC and quite few of the lads dated the girls, and at least two of our boys ended up marrying WRAC personnel. Though we were in the army the mix of male/female at GHQ MELF was healthy and girls were there to ‘fall in love with’. My favourite was a wee (that means that she was about the same height as I was or maybe even a bit smaller) civilian lassie, with her hair done in a pony tail, that used to come and pick up the messages for her Dad's office (POMEF). As I was the despatch section by now, I had to deal with her - and all the others of course - but she was absolutely gorgeous, with the bonniest eyes on the whole of Cyprus, - and, she reminded me of a lassie from home. (who had the bonniest eyes in the whole world - and probably still does!) At first we were both very shy with each other but soon we were chatting away quite happily and I think we both enjoyed our 'stolen moments' at the despatch window.
Life in SMC continued on as usual with new faces replacing old and by now I was a useful part of the SMC team. In despatch I had to run off the typewritten copies on a Gestetner, envelope them and contact any offices when Flash or Op Immediate signals came through. The section was usually one man with help when it got busy - everybody 'mucked in'. Steve left in 1959 which left Mantis and me of the old exploring team. We soon got new recruits and took off on our walks again. One day we set of to walk to Limassol via the Akrotiri peninsula a walk that would take us a good 8 hours or so. We set off after an early breakfast, with packed lunches from our friends in the cookhouse - I think there were six of us on this ‘expedition’. On the way we supplemented our packed lunches by 'borrowing' a couple of water melons from a field. We stopped to eat our apples at the southermost part of our journey right out at the Akrotiri point, then set of and rounded another point and wandered up to the salt lake, where we stopped to have our lunch. Lunch devoured (we were starving by this time) we meandered onto the 'lake' to see what it was like. It was not the bonniest of places and the salt was not table salt white, more of pale brown with big cracks in it caused by evaporation. Of course we had to shove a stick down to see what was down there. Only muddier browner salt - we sampled it. After a bit we decided to abandon the lake and made for a village we saw beyond the 'elephant' grass rthat surrounded the lake. We eventually reached the village and had to pass through a private garden to get onto the road. The garden owner was Turkish which was good as they were still friendlier than the Greek Cypriots at this time. When Steve and I were biking the Greek Cypriot taxi drivers deliberately tried to ditch us so I have to say that I have no great love for Greek Cypriots - though it may be a bit different now. Anyway the garden owners pointed us toward a Turkish cafe where we drank some Turkish coffee as we waited for a taxi to pick us up and take us back to Epi. When you are just a wee bit weary after a long walkTurkish coffee is the stuff to revive you - of that there is no doubt! It comes in wee cups but it gets to the bits that need reviving!
1960 arrived quietly for me as I was on night shift but we had a good old time in the office with loads of tea/coffee and goodies. The only traffic were the New Year greetings that came through the teleprinters from all over the world. I was in 'love' with Ruby murray the Irish singer at the time and I 'typed' one of her - a labour of love you could call it - which turned out quite nice and was sent all over the place as a New Year Greeting! The Christmas teleprinter greetings were marvellous, and I remember one in particular of the Madonna and Child, a copy of which I may still have in my 'wee box' in the attic.. I never had been homesick all the time in Cyprus but I now realized that in a few months I would be ‘free’ so I started a ‘Chartis Demobli Prontis’ which I still have somewhere in the 'wee box' in the attic, alongside several other items of service memorabilia - including the pencil I was using on my last shift in SMC.
One day in April I was down on the beach with Jim Day I think it was when one of the lads from the shift on duty came to the cliff top and hollered ;’Ginge you’d better get up here, you are going home tomorrow’. I could not believe it but when I got up to the top he told me that The Hon. Duncan Sandys the then Foreign Secretary or whatever had flown to Cyprus and as it would be daft to send the plane back empty, a plane load was to be made up of the next boys due for demob. That included yours truly. Within one hour I collected all the kit that had to be handed in, and handed it in. I then packed my kit bag with all the stuff that I would take back to Blighty, said a happy/sad ‘cheerio’ to Mantis and the lads and caught the lorry that was to take us to Nicosia, where we would stop for one night, before flying home on the next day. I was still in shock that evening as we played ‘housie’ in the NAAFI Club in Nicosia airport. Paddy, Mick and Bill were there with me but not Bernard who had to stop in Cyprus for another month. ( He had done one months ‘jankers’ for dropping a sten gun whilst seated in the back of an army truck and it 'fired' narrowly missing the driver. Sten guns were bad in that respect.). Bob who worked in the Sergeant Major’s tent was not with us and neither was Abie who was stationed in Nicosia. The remaining four of us from GHQ (perhaps that is why we got home early)did well at the ‘housie’ that evening and the drinks cost nothing – we even made a small profit.
Next morning we were up bright and early and rarin' to go. We had a leisurely breakfast, got everything as organized as we could and then just waited. Eventually the time came for us to board the Bristol Britannia (it was famous at the time for being so steady in flight that you could stand a pencil on end on the table. It did!) aircraft that we were to fly home in. I had never been in an aeroplane before so this was another first for me. The whole of my National Service had been dotted of 'firsts' so I tend to look back on it as a thrilling experience.
The flight home was uneventful and though we were awestruck by Italy, then the Alps the best bit of all was crossing the English coast and the green countryside of England before landing at Gatwick Airport. Customs were a formality though I had to pay duty on my camera. When we got to London we made for Waterloo, caught the train for Aldershot and eventually reached Bordon about half past eleven, where we had to waken the duty clerk. I remember he had a string attached to the light switch, up and across the ceiling via hooks, eventually ending at his temporary bed in the office, from which he had to extricate himself to get us organized with bedding and beds for the night, but he was a happy sort and did it all without any moaning. The four of us slept well that night and even slept in and had to have a late breakfast. The paperwork had not caught us up yet and no one really knew what to do with us until it did, so we spent most of our time in the NAAFI Club in Aldershot. We slept another three nights at Bordon before we were sent on our separate ways home.
I was on my own as I boarded the Flying Scotsman for my last trip as a National Serviceman – or ex National Serviceman – as I was now in my civvies with my wee case just as I had left Kinneuchar Station under two years ago. I dreamt as the Scotsman rattled through the miles. If you have ever traveled on a steam train from London to Edinburgh the air seems to get cooler when you reach the border - well it seems that way to me, so I woke up just after we passed over the Berwick on Tweed viaduct. After a while I was able to look out over the Firth of Forth to see the not too far distance Fife coast and that brought a lump to my throat. Breakfast in Edinburgh was a real pleasure and I relaxed a little before I caught a train for Leven, where I had decided to get off rather than at Kinneuchar Station with its long walk to the bus stop.
All ‘coming home’ experiences must involve pretty much the same feelings for everyone, back with your old pals again, pick up where you left off two years previously. But things had changed. My old pals just wanted to go to the pub and I had never been in a pub before in my life. Twenty two years old and the only place I had ever had a drink was the NAAFI Clubs in various army Garrisons. A couple of months after demob a couple of us headed for Anstruther 'for a pint' and I remember that the first pub I ever entered was the Masonic on Shore Street in Anstruther, where the barman asked me my age because he thought I was too young to drink. End of the new drinking hobby. I remember thinking that I had never had that problem with the NAAFI!
EPILOGUE
In 1962 some of the Scottish ex SMC members met in Edinburgh for a night out but other than that I have never been in touch with any of the lads that I mention in this story. I am sure that I saw Steve a few years back on the TV at Chelsea Flower in some sort of official status. ‘Mantis’ I have never seen or heard of since 1960. I keep typing their names into the computer in the hope they might ‘turn up’ but no such luck. SMC will no longer exist in the new computerised army but I am glad it did then and that I was part of it!
What about me now you ask! About 3 months after I got home from Cyprus I got onto a bus in Elie and there was Maggie. We 'fell in love', and got married on the 9th September 1961 eighteen months after I came out of the army. We have two sons who, with a little help from their wives, have produced four gorgeous grandchildren ranging in age from 19 down to 7 years of age.
I have no doubt that I will continue to do inexplicable things and continue to dream. I may even write a book. Oh no here I go again - what kind of book should I write I am now thinking. A romantic novel is definitely out as my stupid attempts at romance would make an onion cry!. I am sure that ‘JB’ , my only grandson will think of something I could write about.
Inexplicable I do really well. Dreaming I do best!
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