Pad's Army by Paul Addy - HTML preview

 

RESTITUTION

My career in the Police is a whole different saga. Most people think Police Officers have an almost bottomless bag of amusing stories to tell. Well, it seems I haven’t and what I have got are only funny if you used to be a copper and ... well ... you had to be there. The Territorial Army, however, is slightly different.

I joined for two reasons. Post Falklands ‘I should have been there’ syndrome and the fact that the overtime situation at work was getting meagre. I now had two beautiful young girls and a cute little son to take care of and Ethel Austin’s kids wear and nearly new toys cost money.

I’d heard there was a TA Military Police unit in Manchester. I thought deeply about what they might do (but not deeply enough). It’ll be special duties, British Legion events and Remembrance Day. No2 dress uniform, No 1 dress red cap, white plastic belt, shiny boots. A piece of piss!

 “I can do that!” I thought and trundled down to their HQ in West Bromwich to say “Giz a job!” It was a popular phrase of the time.

As I was an ex-regular and had been out 5 years, I was taken back in as a Lcpl, without having to do any tests or recruit training shit. Since leaving the MPs I’d been on the books of the Regular Reserve. At that time, you turned up at a drill hall somewhere, once a year, got shown some webbing, a picture of a Russian, passed the tin hat recognition test and did some documentation. I don’t recall ever being given any kit and I certainly wasn’t paid. So, West Brom issued me with the necessary. I was there a whole day and no one told me what I discovered at Manchester. I never thought to ask.

My first weekend with the TA was an eye opener. In the Regs I’d heard that all the Territorials did was spend the weekend drinking. It sounded very attractive. The truth was somewhat different. I found myself that Friday evening dressed in full kit, patrolling up a track in the dark as an Infantryman, carrying an SLR, the standard Infantry weapon and something I was not familiar with. Not to worry, I had a magazine of twenty blank rounds and this in itself was novel. The last time I’d seen blanks had been in training. I settled down to a bit of skirmishing with the thought I would soon be sat on my pit in the accommodation at Holcombe Moor camp with a couple of nice beers. Not so.

We were out all night, the first part spent dancing wildly around pot flares, firing off the blanks from the bushes we’d thrown ourselves in and sending Schermuly parachute flares skywards. When we’d exhausted the pyrotechnics, we went back to patrolling drills and eventually strolled into the accommodation at five in the morning. After weapons cleaning, it was time for breakfast. We had our own cook, who was known as ‘Jimmy the Hoover’. When he wasn’t pouring the fat from the bacon and sausages into the only healthy option, the baked beans, he was the caretaker and cleaner at our TA centre.

They were a mixed bunch and all really good lads who hailed, for the most part, from the Manchester area. I discovered there were only three ‘scousers’ in the Unit. The other two, the Nightingale brothers, Mark and Carl, actually came from Warrington. At times, their infectious and well timed humour made me think they could be related to the Chuckle Brothers. I was just a southerner who happened to live in Liverpool. Technicalities such as these mattered not to the Manchester lads. To them we were scousers and therefore we had to listen to them taking the piss, saying the only word any of them could say that sounded remotely like scouse. There are only so many times you can hear someone say “Chicken” before it begins to grate on your nerves.

The OC of the Detachment was a bloke called Tony Mercer, who had a passing resemblance to the guy off the ‘Mad Magazine’ cover.  He was very keen that we not only knew how to do Provost Ops but could also be passable Infantrymen. To aid in this we had at least one ex-Infantry senior rank and a number of Cpls who were either ex- commandos (both Royal Marines and Army) or who had Infantry experience of some sort. One of them had served with the Ghurkhas.

It’s fair to say, most weekends were spent on Provost Ops, setting up on the moors and signing various routes repeatedly but we did at least two or three Infantry weekends a year. Our formal commitment to the TA was twelve weekends and a two week camp. That’s what you needed to collect your tax free bounty. There weren’t many that did only that. Most of us were putting in double.

Now, the entire Unit was what was known as Independent which meant, unlike a Sponsored Unit that drew its membership from the Police or the Automobile Association (think about it), we recruited from anywhere (which accounts for several years later when we ended up with about 10 Greek Cypriot recruits who we never saw again once they’d been issued with their Army numbers – a scam to avoid national service). Most of the guys were just plumbers, painter and decorators, lab technicians and council workers. We had a truck stop manager, a farmer, a scaffolder and a scrap metal dealer and several of the guys were serving Manchester police officers.

Captain Mercer’s aim was to build the Detachment up to be the best in the Company and it was working.  It was always the right combination of leadership with experienced and willing staff, people who wanted to be there and wanted to be professional.

Because I was a BAOR trained radio operator, with good radio procedure and technique, I was eventually selected to help man the company control element known as Sector Control, which was an all Manchester affair. I’d always enjoyed working the radio and in Germany, whilst a regular soldier, had spent a pleasant night listening to the 1977 European Cup Liverpool win on the platoon’s C13 radio, nicely tucked up in my sleeping bag in the back of a Land Rover. Since late afternoon this thing hadn’t spoken a word to me so when everyone bar the road patrol bedded down I retuned it to the match. After that, I tuned into the World Service and fell asleep. The next day there were difficult questions requiring sensible answers regarding why our platoon hadn’t heeded the radio instruction to return to camp. I made some technical adjustments and blamed the batteries.

 The OC had a pile of military issued instruction books and manuals which he happily let me read when we were training back home. It’s fair to say he taught me an enormous amount which all came in handy on various exercises in the Federal Republic.

Three Cpls, myself included, would control the movement of convoys through our designated sector, managing the deployment of our Traffic Posts (TPs) and recording the placement of various harbour areas. All this was overseen by a Sergeant Major or Officer as the ‘Watch keeper’. The truth of the matter is that once it all kicked off they were seldom present having to attend numerous briefings and mending all sorts of problems.

When in full swing it was hectic. On Exercise Lionheart, three of us, Steve, Ritchie and me, re-routed convoys around a vast area of the British sector. It was like some giant, mad, chaotic game show. As soon as we’d been told by the umpires a bridge or section of a route was notionally destroyed or blocked (and had re-routed accordingly) we would be hit with another and then another. For hours the pressure was intense but we did it and did it well. By the time Endex was called, we’d well earned our beers. The OC joined us. He was partial to Special Brew but would only ever drink two at the very most. When he asked us how many he’d had we kept saying, “This is your second, Boss”. He’d just started telling us some very interesting things about who he favoured and who he didn’t when KD, our Sergeant Major, came in with a well meaning scowl and said, “I know what you lot are doing, make this his last.” Shortly after, we had to carry the OC up to his pit. When he asked us the next day how many he’d had we said, “No more than three, Sir.” “Ahh, that explains it,” the OC replied, stirring his alka seltzer.

Sadly, all the fun ended when the Berlin wall came down and the mass migration of British units from Germany killed our exercise seasons and restricted our access to the better training facilities in UK.

Before that happened though, I spent my last days working in Sector control with the Stickman’s son, another Steve, and Robbo, the man whose Bergen contained all sorts of treasures, including a bottle of Jameson’s. We all agreed if Robbo fell off a ferry with it on, we’d save the rucksack first then him, if we could. Originally, the Stickman started to call me the ‘Blackaddy’ because of a popular TV series of the time but, with my companions, we quickly became known as ‘Blackadder, Sir Percy and Baldrick’. Robbo was Baldrick, a title he was quite pleased with. The OC even introduced us to a visiting high ranking Officer under these sobriquets. The Officer shortly after said, “Any chance of a cup of tea, Baldrick?”

We were blessed, for the most part, with senior ranks who had great people skills, who knew what they were doing and were prepared now and then to break the rules when appropriate.

These were people we liked, admired and would follow; people who knew, when viewing the accommodation Brigade had lined up for us (yep, the pigsty again), that the troops were right, and despite the rules, it was time to fuck off and find our own base of operations, hence we once worked from the trees at the top of a nice little park for three days and no one knew we were there, had the grounds of a rustic and slightly dilapidated holiday cottage in the woods complete with sand pit for several more and some assorted out of the way tracks.

Innovation played a part in our modus operandi. I was told that years before they had found it a 'nuisance' wearing the MP armband with combats, so someone sewed the small badge, that was designed for the combat cap, onto a brassard and hey presto a whole new look was spawned. In the 80s, we were discernible from other RMP by the fact we were still wearing the original small ‘flashes’ as opposed to the Regulars' larger ones. Later, some of us started to 'sport' subdued MP flashes (made from an old pair of lightweights by a local tailor). Some Regs liked them but some in authority told us it was against regulations and we must stop wearing them. Even when I transferred to the TA SIB, I kept wearing mine. They’re now standard issue.

  Many of the seniors were happy for you to wear your own kit on exercise; Norwegian shirts, locally made DPM parkas, boots etc and allowed us to amend our webbing to make it more relevant (I ditched my ammo and kidney pouches and used water bottle holders to replace them). They did it because they didn't have a 'rule book' shoved up their arses and knew a comfortable soldier was a happy soldier and happy soldiers were much more pliable than those who were not.

One of our SSgts knew a local manufacturer and had him run up a DPM parka. It came under the name Piranha Field Sports and it was a great piece of kit. Although not impervious to rain, all it needed was a quick spray with a waterproofer every now and then and it was fine. Either way, in a heavy downpour it could soak up a lot of water before you started to feel it. Good for Infantrymen? Probably not, but for vehicle borne bods it was superb. Warm, comfortable, well made and versatile, with or without hood. I even wore mine at work and for nipping down the pub. It was seldom off my back. After one exercise in Germany, we returned two years later to find shit loads of MPs marching round in the same jackets.

I think I‘ve established we were actually much more than decent at our job, something grudgingly recognised by regular RMP, usually with the attachment of, “but they would be, it’s all they do,” so now it’s time to mention some of the more light-hearted  things that happened.

In the first two years of my time at Manchester, I’d noticed a couple of the then seniors got a bit Army barmy when we were on exercise in Germany or annual camp in the UK. It seemed that close proximity to Regular RMP was the catalyst.

Yes, we had our own Permanent Staff Instructors (PSIs), full time RMP working to mould the Units and it was true that each time we got a new one we had to ‘break’ them in over many months because they would usually arrive with the idea we were a bag of shite that needed sorting (that’s the short version). Soon they came to realise we turned up because we wanted to, not because we had to, and were actually very good at what we did. But as one, later to be much liked, chap said as I sat polishing my boots in his office (why I know not!) “Why’s no one turning up? I’m putting together some really good weekends. Why aren’t they coming?” I agreed the weekends were very interesting and worthwhile but had to break the news.

 “Tim,” I said. “The blokes have jobs all week. This is their spare time, their hobby. They like to take it seriously but they get pissed off, you screaming at them all the time and calling them wankers.” It seemed to work. The numbers went back up.

Back to the catalyst. On UK camps we came into contact with all the PSIs from the company. They would be in various stages of ‘breakyiness’ and under the watchful eye of their Officer, the PSO, they were eager to impress. Sometimes we did camps with other TA RMP units so now there were even more of the buggers. On exercise in Germany, at some point or other, we would come into contact with regular RMP units. Now, these couple of seniors were decent men ordinarily but when caught up in the charisma that is a full time MP senior rank or officer they felt they had to excel and do one better.

Once I’d been subject of this a couple of times, I made a point in the Mess, back in Manchester, of declaring over several occasions (I wanted to make sure they were all aware just in case the disease spread) that if anyone threatened to, or actually did, lock me up I would promptly strip naked and sit on the floor. They could shout all they wanted but they would only be making themselves look stupid. I emphasised they couldn’t beat me, had to feed and water me and couldn’t make me work. In fact, if they wanted me in the guardroom (should they be able to find one) they would have to carry me. This seemed to work. They left me alone. Well, almost.

We were coming back from Germany and had pulled into a service station on the M6. The SSgt had said we should tell him which tank was empty so he could direct us to the pumps accordingly and thus ensure a speedy fill up (he knew this part of the journey would only use one tank). All I had to do was follow the plan. When in the Regs, we used to have this thing of transferring the feed of the tanks from one to the other. I was told it helped prevent clogging up the pipes with the flakey residue that formed from the colourant put in Army petrol. But some of you might say ‘This wouldn’t happen because the Land Rover had filters that would stop this material from the petrol point getting into your tank?’ In theory ... yes, but the problem was we used to take the filters out because it took longer to fill your tanks with them in.

For some reason, even though I hadn’t been taking the filters out anymore, I fell back into this mode and arrived at the pumps with half empty tanks either side. Obviously the conversation over which pump he was sending me to went downhill as soon as the Staffy said, “Which side?”

My two colleagues filled the vehicle up whilst I sat in the back ‘under arrest for insubordination’. I couldn’t help but laugh. Job done, he ran over and began shouting at us to move the vehicle. He stuck his head in the back and ‘asked’ why we weren’t moving. I had to tell him it was because I was the only one in the vehicle able to drive it. I was instantly released from arrest. 

At Barry Budden, near Dundee, we spent two weeks in Nissen huts which, when full of troops, produced condensation which dripped like rain from the ceiling. We slept in our waterproofs, which was handy because when we went for breakfast it was always raining outside as well.

Each morning, after brekky, we would excitedly gambol back to the accommodation to get changed into the kit of the day (as per the ‘daily detail’) but before we made it to the parade square some senior rank would tell us we’d got it wrong and send us back to get changed. Sometimes, having changed, we were sent back yet again and once we never even made it back to start changing before we were told that the change had changed.

 They had a Naafi bar there and it ruined the song ‘Club Tropicana’ for me because it was played on a juke box which was situated right next to the entrance door. The first time we went there it was exciting, the music played on our approach and we envisaged all sorts of delights. We opened the door, it hit the juke box, Club Tropicana started all over again and we viewed the old wooden, warped floor which led to an elongated hatch staffed by some women who were definitely an inspiration for the cartoonist from Viz magazine. We sat there supping pints of something called ‘heavy’ which came in 20 shilling or 40 shilling varieties, both of which tasted the same. Every few minutes more excited little MPs came in and Club Tropicana started all over again. To this day, I can’t hear that song without being whizzed back in time to that dreary place. Oh, and, somehow,  we managed to set fire to the ranges, despite the almost constant rain!

On the same camp, one young man was lonely and wrote home to his girl telling her how beastly a certain Sgt was being to him. He showed us the letter. It didn’t quite use the term ‘beastly’ but it was clear from the language he’d used, it was what he meant.  He ended it with ‘the man is an absolute c***’. His problem was he didn’t have a stamp to send it off. Neither did we. He went to the Sgt in question and asked him if he had one. He did and the letter was posted.

The lad himself could be a bit of a pain in the arse and so he found himself, once,working in coveralls from his cell in the Guardroom. He complained he was bored and having nothing else for him to do he was sent to see his favourite Sgt on the firing range. He’d only been there 30 minutes when he so exasperated the Sgt that he was picked up from the firing point by the collar and arse of his pants and thrown into a nearby bush!

During a parade, the RSM admired one bloke’s boots. That night the lad sold them to another who wore them the next day. The RSM had him locked up for wearing non regulation footwear. He was marched off to the Guardroom which was being manned by one of the other detachments (for some reason Man Det always managed to avoid these duties particularly when Tony Mercer became the overall company commander). The first problem was nobody in the Guardroom or standing anywhere outside had a committal/handing over receipt (always needed to place a soldier in close arrest). The ‘prisoner’ had to produce one from his Police notebook. No one could remember how to fill it in and who got what. The prisoner filled it in for them and sorted the two halves. When put in his cell the prisoner suggested they might want to search him and take his belt and laces in case he tried to hang himself. Good idea they said. 

Later on, he was released and declared he didn’t mind at all because he'd filled in the time whittling a piece of wood he'd had in his pocket with the penknife he'd had in the other and, unlike us, he didn’t have to queue for his lunch.

Sometimes at these places people have a bit too much to drink and accidents happen. One fellow Corporal woke up one night to find the chap above had pissed the bed. As if that wasn’t bad enough, my colleague declared what made it worse was he’d been having a dream ... tropical forest, cool inviting waterfall, the need to drink its sweet waters ... need I go on?

Pissing the bed was unusual. Normally, in a drunken state, your mates would get up, open a locker and let loose over your webbing or such like. It’s a surprisingly easy thing to do, I very nearly did it myself once.

At another annual camp, the lads were bored and decided to have fun and play ‘throw the scouser out of the window’. I looked around but Mark and Carl had fucked off sharpish. Out the ground floor window I went, to howls of laughter. Instead of just buggering off, for some reason I thought the game would be over. Wrong. Out the window again. Then a third time. Right, that was it! I’d had enough. I’d show them. I got myself an empty bin from another block, filled it with water and burst into our room and flung it where they had been gathered when I last saw them (they’d been standing around a table).  Time began to move slowly as the column of water weaved its way towards a PSI, sat on the table in his civvies, regaling them with a tale of derring do. For a split second, I wondered if I could get it back in the bucket but was thwarted by time speeding up again as the lot hit him squarely in the face. There was a moment’s total silence as they stared at me, incredulity etched on their faces, as I stood, forlornly, holding the bin in one hand. Then I was thrown out the window again.

In the wilds, just outside Catterick, we carried out a signals exercise. Company HQ was a big tent. The then OC, not Tony Mercer, had people collect small boulders to line a path from a track to the entrance to the tent. They had to paint them white using the stuff we usually used for the road signage. He even had them plant some flowers. We waited for the visiting dignitaries, who didn’t show up. Meanwhile the OC’s vehicle needed some work on it so I was sent to find the Tiffys. I asked someone where they were and was told to follow a power cable. Two hundred metres away, I found them in a little tent, well hidden in a dip, out of sight. They had an electric kettle and were watching the match on a television.

The Tiffys were a bit of a law unto themselves because everyone depended upon them to make the vehicles go forwards and backwards. Vehicle doesn’t work, no Tiffy or pissed off Tiffy, no one went anywhere. They were two really nice blokes and were called Big Tiff and Little Tiff, titles inspired by the kids programme ‘Playschool’. They used to get away with saluting other units’ Officers with the scout salute and saying, ‘Dibdib’. Of course, if a complaint came in our bosses would assure the complainant that the most serious measures would be taken but nothing ever happened. At the end of the day, everyone wanted to get home and no one wanted to walk. 

    We stayed in Inverness one UK camp. The town centre was strangely pleasant with its riverbank lights and various decent bars. Admittedly, we only saw it in the dark but I was impressed with the feel of the place.

Cameron Barracks, however, was a solemn victorian built place with echoes of National Servicemen being ‘beasted’ across the drill square.

We weren’t there long when a certain little Lieutenant decided I had too much to say for myself and kindly granted me the opportunity to stay a bit longer in the cookhouse after tea to perform General Duties (GD). In civvy street this would be known as ‘clearing up after the cooks and washing all the pans’. The trouble was he perceived anyone standing next to me at the time to be part of ‘the problem’ as well. As a result, Robbo joined me in the cookhouse that evening to scrub grease encrusted pans and wipe down food preparation areas with two filthy cloths and a rusty wire pad.  The only other assistance we got was from a battered tin of ‘Deepio’ which was the Army’s version of ‘Vim’ scouring powder. I asked the cooks if they had any clean cloths to be told they only boiled them up once a week so I’d have to wait until Friday. Don’t even ask about the floor mops.

An hour later the little twerp came back and asked us why we weren’t finished. We told him it was because there were a lot of pans. For some reason he took this as insolence and granted more time to carry out our tasks. The rest of the week in fact.

So there we were, officially down for GD duties on the daily detail for the rest of the week. The only thing we could do was get on with it and to dress accordingly. I took to wearing combat trousers with a pair of green Army underpants worn on the outside together with a green T shirt and a cape made from a knackered old curtain. It was finished off with a pair of ear defenders worn so the headband lay across my eyes giving me a look reminiscent of Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: Next Generation.

Robbo wore a pair of Army long johns, belt kit, green T shirt and a camouflage cape fashioned from material he pulled from the ‘just in case’ part of his large rucksack. It was all finished off with a dashing pair of ‘Roy Orbison’ sunglasses. Thus, so we thought, for the rest of the week we would be the new superheroes ‘GD man and his trusty sidekick Deepio’ but that night the RSM smiled in amusement, likened us to two vaginas and made a passing mention of the possibility of a second week being the cookhouse skivvies so we turned up the next evening in more suitable attire. The Lieutenant, however, never bothered us again.

It was an interesting annual camp but the two things that stood out for me were the night navigation exercise and the assault boats trip up the Cromarty Firth.

One evening, as the light faded, we boarded a military helicopter wearing full kit and were ferried out into the wilderness. Our own junior Officer, Mister Bealey, was the stick commander and sat with headphones on listening to the pilots discussing things. I liked Mister Bealey because he had a good sense of humour but being twig thin, with a studious air about him, he looked  more suited to the Army Education Corps than the Military Police. It turned out he was a teacher, Religious Education I think.

 Anyway, he leaned over to me and said, with a seemingly unconcerned grin, “The pilot’s just said he hasn’t flown one of these before.”

 I could feel the blood draining from my face. I was never totally comfortable with flying  and obviously, with this news, what confidence I had sought refuge somewhere near my anus. I felt something was bound to go wrong. Images of us spiralling from the sky after hitting some wayward pigeon or an adventurous pheasant played through my head and I decided I wasn’t going to suffer alone so I shared it with my neighbour. Immediately, I felt slightly better as I watched the looks of concern spread around my colleagues.

Mister Bealey nudged me. “Sorry, it was the co-pilot who said that. The pilot says he’s been flying these for years.”

We arrived in the middle of nowhere, flung the kit out and followed it, forming all round defence. It was a hard landing, the helicopter didn’t actually touch down. As it sailed away, the eventual silence let us know we were well and truly on our own. On making the cover of a few trees 400 metres away we were briefed, issued maps, compasses, paired off then released into the night at 15 minute intervals. It soon became apparent I was more competent with navigation issues than my colleague.

The aim of the exercise was to successfully navigate our way to several obvious points then reach the final rendevous (RV) without being spotted by the Directing Staff (DS).

We made good time, so we thought, and eventually felt we were very close to the last stop, the hidden RV.  We’d been at it for a good few hours and were tired. I became convinced that not only were we ‘there or thereabouts’ but that I could also see a Land Rover camouflaged up just inside the edge of a wood. I wasted 20 minutes of our time sneaking up on some trees then more sneaking up on some bushes. Zilch.

Forced to give in, we walked another 100 metres to a fork in the path which had a little ‘island’ of shrubs on it. I flung my bergen down, lit a cigarette, sat down and declared, “They’ve fucked off without us,” at which point I fell off my bergen as one of the shrubs said, “What took you so fucking long?” It was one of our Staff Sergeants, Lobber, superbly camouflaged with a nice combo of fresh shrub and purple heather. Apparently, I’d only just missed him with my bergen and he wasn’t well pleased because we were the last to arrive and, somehow, were at least an hour behind the rest. Maybe I’d spent too long in those bushes.

The Cromarty Firth. We were told it would be a pleasant outboard engine assisted trip with the promise of a funtime beach ‘assault’. The reality was that after assembling the boats, which I felt sure had last seen daylight on a contested river crossing during Operation Market Garden in 1944, we motored our way along the Firth for 600 metres when the driver declared we would have to get out and push as there wasn’t enough clearance for the propeller. What was expected to be a short period of getting wet became the whole afternoon as it was discovered that the tide was going out and the transport to return the boats to storage, for another 40 years, was miles away. To make things worse, there were no comms with anyone else. With nothing else to do we trudged, thigh deep, along the Cromarty Firth admiring the seals basking on the ‘sand’ banks whilst they in turn ‘admired’ us. When we eventually reached the RV point we had to dismantle the boats, pack them on their transport and wave them goodbye. Then we were bollocked for being late. It later turned out that the organiser of the event hadn’t realised the Firth was tidal and the boat blokes, who knew, had assumed the timings were right.

Other exercise fun in Germany: One of our favourite Sgts, who sported a magnificent moustache, decided to have an all over wash in an aluminium bowl and found himself running naked, apart from his Mk IV battle bowler, through the Brigade HQ location during a ‘crash out’.

He tried to catch up with the Land Rover containing his clothes but it took some time as it was weaving between all sorts of vehicles and trees in a very determined effort to be the first off the plot. First prize was unlimited use of a password.  He’d almost reached the main road before they stopped.

Picking up the phone, one day I heard a Welsh voice say, “Hello, it’s Juliet four zero. We got your message but we don’t quite know what to do with it.” I’d sent them a coded message. It was called Batco (for Battle code) and everyone was supposed to have been trained in this particular means of communication. The company had a whole weekend’s training in using it which I missed and had to learn on a training night. It took me 11 minutes to be more than competent. Mild autism has its benefits.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“Well, what’s this two xray all about? It doesn't make sense." A pause. "To be honest,” he said, apologetically, as if it was my fault, “none of it makes sense. I’ve made a few words up from it, but the rest? I can’t seem to do anything with it.”

Somehow, he'd missed the training and now found himself standing in a Traffic Post (TP), on his own, manning the radio, whilst the rest of his crew desperately re-signed a route. Despite my best attempts to covertly explain the message, it wasn't working. In the end I had to send a Don R (Army speak - despatch rider, civvy speak - a bod on a motorbike) to give it to him in plain English. The Don R took some paper and crayons with him just in case.

Just prior to this, we stood discussing, with the OC, the viability of us using a location where several units were co-located. There were cables all over the place and no one was sure what was what. As we talked, one unit had already decided to move on and we watched one of their men rolling cable back onto a wooden circular holder. He politely asked us to move out of the way, which we did. As we watched him cheerfully disappear into the woods still rolling the wire up as he went, I idly commented, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that was ours?” The OC laughed and replied, “As if.” Later that day, we discovered our landline was no longer attached to anything.

For a short time on one Ex, we were co-billeted with a regular RMP section, cool guys, norwegian shirts, self bought kit; obviously there were things to discuss and compare. We were in a distillery of some sort and the sleeping quarters were in a nice clean unused part of it. We had a few beers and one of the regulars admired my mate Robbo’s state of the art lightweight combat hammock which he’d strung up between two pillars. The regular soldier was worried though; wouldn’t it just slide down the columns?

 “Not at all. Safe as houses and very comfortable. I’ll show you,” Robbo answered, leaping into it deftly but not quite deftly enough. It promptly span round and dumped him in a heap on the floor. He sprang up, glasses askew, like a thin Captain Mainwaring and said, “Ah, sometimes it does that but as you see, it’s still secure on the pillars.”

Yep, strange things happened on ‘scheme’. I met several people who claimed to be cooks and a Quartermaster who couldn’t stop giving us things. The Q was quite a character.

Billeted in a turkey farm with other units, we thought we’d found the ‘Ritz’ when dumping our kit on the wooden boards of the first floor. The senior ranks had bagsied the ground floor near to the turkeys which might seem odd but it meant they didn’t have to lug their stuff up the long, narrow wooden staircase. There were some empty grain hoppers running along the walls, which we assumed were for pouring stuff in to feed the turkeys, and the floor was dusty with husks and spilt grain. That night we lay cocooned in our sleeping bags listening to the rats squealing and scampering around us as they fought over the buffet. The wily people amongst us volunteered to do nights, I wasn’t so quick and simply drank half a bottle of Doornkat each night before bedding down. 

Apart from that it was a fairly pleasant stay. The chemical toilets were changed on the third day so the smell was just about bearable but the queue to use them had begun to form an hour before the new ones arrived. There was some serious rank pulling going on and it was obvious some people were using proxies. I decided to hang on for the weekend.

Whilst there, Robbo managed to upset one of the RMP staff instructors. Having finished shaving, he asked me where I’d dumped my water when I’d shaved. I told him I’d had it outside but didn’t see any problem with it being poured down an empty grain hopper. Neither did he. No sooner had it been dispatched than a mighty roar went up followed by angry, awkward stamping on the stairs. In came a somewhat wet and puce mighty atom who proceeded to tell us what he’d do to both of us if he had more time. He swore a lot too! We’d never seen him before so decided he must have been with our company HQ or one of the other detachments. It wasn’t something we needed to worry about because we never saw him again. Two days later, we discovered he was normally a very pleasant man but had been shipped off for an emergency haemorrhoids operation which accounted for his ‘tense’ manner and odd gait.

On our last day there I had a minor meltdown which was caused by Sir Percy and Baldrick telling me that our final meal was chicken in the basket and chips with mixed fruit pudding and custard for dessert. They told me lunch was finishing soon but they’d asked the cooks to put me a portion away and enthused so much about how the cooks had really pushed the boat out that I excitedly strode off really looking forward to it. I should have taken more notice of their choice of words. Entering the cookhouse tent, I discovered a serving tray with cold pilchards in tomato sauce, cubed processed cheese and some biscuits AB (the AB stood for ‘alternative bread’ and they were the modern equivalent of ‘hardtack’)  Dessert was mix and match congealed boiled sweets.

The young ‘chef’ guarding the serving spoons looked bewildered when I demanded my chicken in the basket. He said they didn’t have any. I said some had been put away for me. He flat out denied it. I asked for my chips, he looked even more confused. We bandied words across the rickety table for a while before the cookhouse Sgt, who was sat ten feet away on a couple of ten man ration packs cleaning his grimy nails with a fork, settled the matter by telling me it was pilchards or nothing. I pointed out that it wouldn’t have taken much to make an effort and cook up some tins of curried chicken from the menus he was sat on and he told me to make the effort and fuck off out of his cookhouse. Oh how the others chortled as they saw my face. My throwing my webbing in a corner then kicking shit out of it just made them laugh even more.

 The charismatic Quartermaster: It was Exercise White Rhino and 7 Armd Bde were battling it out with 22 Armd Bde, if I remember correctly. Both these formations have an interesting history that’s worth looking up. Anyway, we were exercise policing both sides and there was a threat from the IRA so we were the only troops on the exercise carrying live ammo.

Luckily, my platoon were with the side whose Brigadier wasn’t arsed if we played the game and all he asked of us was that we threw some scrim up and covered the windows and lights with hessian sacking to stop any recce from the air picking up the reflections. Our other platoon were forced to go all ‘warry’ and be located with their Brigade HQ. We found our own locations and generally had a grand old time.

Halfway through the ‘war’ we moved in with some full time RMP at a works yard for some rest and recuperation (R and R), a common thing for troops to do on two or three week exercises (or longer). They had the main buildings and were well set up for their role of real time policing. We bedded down with the vehicles under an open sided construction that suited our needs. It looked as if it was going to be a relaxing couple of days until their platoon commander decided we looked like the new au pair and had us detailed to do all the washing up details for the weekend. We knew he was just giving his people a break but it was the way it was done that rankled. Anyway, the news went down like a pork sausage at a Middle Eastern buffet. I was the platoon commander’s driver, a task I’d always previously viewed as an easy number. It wasn’t. I got half an hour's more sleep than he did when he insisted on going to a briefing on his own. Otherwise, we were both absolutely knackered. At one point, coming back from somewhere, we were shouting and screaming like idiots in order to stay awake and had to change drivers every 15 minutes.

I looked at the platoon’s sad little faces and told them I was volunteering to be a washer up then asked who was coming with me. Thankfully, several hands went up and saved me from having to pick on someone; my SSgt, who was completely knackered, had told me to sort it out and promptly collapsed in his pit.

Our Sgts? Well, one had volunteered to take a Land Rover to a local camp to be mended (local to where we had been!) and was many miles away struggling with the hardships of barrack life (the job should’ve been a Lcpl's but ...). The other had decided he needed to drive a very attractive female Lcpl to a traffic accident. I can’t think why.

Dinner came and went and very nice it was too. By teatime, lying around was making us hungry so we tucked in and  then my ‘posse’ and I set about cleaning the stuff that cooks love to make a mess of but never want to clean. We took our time and were having a laugh because we thought we could.

Their SSgt wandered past and made some unneeded remark. I threw away what I thought was a cheeky comment. He didn’t like it and things went a bit downhill resulting in my telling him, “If you want it doing faster, then do the fucking things yourself, Staff.” He began to change colour and I could see what was going through his mind. I gripped my ‘brush on a stick’ and tin of ‘Deepio’ scouring powder tighter. He thought better of it and went to complain to my Boss, who was a former RM Commando. I caught his lovely reply: “No, you won’t. If anyone is going to chin him, it’ll be me!” What a guy!

The following day I was sent to beg some kit from their Q and to offer some of ours in return.  It turned out to be the same SSgt. We pretended nothing had happened and he was actually quite a nice chap. My Boss’s way of smoothing the waters.

One time, we had a casualty evacuation by helicopter to deal with after we arrived at some farmhouse and set up outside. That first night we slept in the back of the wagons and some occupied the bus shelter nearby. There were loads of mosquitoes about and we liberally sprayed Autan all over everyone. For some reason it failed to work on one of the chaps and by the morning he looked as if they’d all mistaken him for a reedy, stagnant pond. Come to think of it that’s exactly what he looked like. Off he went and it was a good while before we saw him again, meanwhile the farmer had come out and offered us the use of his yard and outbuildings. Every morning, his daughter left us various fruits on a wall and my mucker, Mark Nightingale, did a whip round and left sweets, chocolate and tins of mixed fruit pudding from our ration packs in the little basket on the front of her bicycle. 

At one point on this exercise, we were spread all over. To give his troops a break my SSgt decided he and I would escort a convoy of light recce vehicles, from the rail siding they were delivered at, to somewhere else. We weren’t taking them all the way, just getting them through the town.

We arrived and liaised. It would be another hour before they would all be unloaded. We went off and enjoyed our boil in the bag beef stew and dumplings. It was the first time we’d been given this stuff and it was absolutely beautiful. Whilst enjoying it we discussed the options. I was in favour of taking them through the town and letting the traffic lights regulate them, if need be. Steve, my SSgt, was in favour of taking them along a shorter route which ran through a housing estate. It was essentially a straight road but every 50 metres it intersected with a  crescent where the view to the left and right was restricted and our road didn’t have priority. There was about ten in all. For me, knowing the German’s penchant for speed, it was dangerous and with twenty or so light tanks to move, and only one RMP vehicle, I thought it was a possible disaster waiting to happen.

 Steve, conscious he still had an important briefing to go to, maintained it could be done,but I wasn’t happy and felt I had to tell him. The last thing I wanted was anyone saying, ‘why didn’t you say something’. It became a mildly heated discussion which was resolved, untypically, by me doing what the fuck I was told. We’d become so engrossed in the matter that time had rolled on and when we got to the siding the convoy had rolled off. We asked the little man in the railway hut and he pointed towards the town centre. By the time we caught them they were merrily, very efficiently, regulating themselves through each set of lights. One Scorpion would enter a traffic light controlled junction and its commander would hold up a traffic wand to signify he’d taken control of that junction. The others would then drive through, each scorpion at the front doing the same at the following junctions. It was simple and very effective. 

Soon, it was time to collect more rations. Our own people couldn’t do it anymore for some reason, thankfully, so we were handed over to the world’s nicest Quartermaster. Nothing was too much for him. We had the brand new boil in the bag ration packs: beef stew and dumplings, sausage or bacon with beans, Lancashire hot pot, dozens of eggs and more bread than we knew what to do with. We eventually had to refuse anymore because we knew it would just go to waste (apart from the beef stew and dumplings which I could have eaten all day. I took some home and pretended I’d cooked it myself; the kids were impressed). Did we need any clean combats? No thanks. Lightweights maybe?  No thanks. Soft bog roll? Yes please!

I’d noticed, by our second visit, all his guys were wearing brand new clean kit which prompted me to ask why he was the nicest Q in the world. He laughed and coughed he was leaving soon for civvy street and had ceased to give a fuck.

As part of our exercise life, I had to drive the SSgt to Brigade HQ almost daily. Every time, the sentry at the entrance to their locations would go through the security check. At the very beginning our own company HQ had supplied us with the daily passwords but after our first visit we found they didn’t match up. It went like this:

“Hello, we’ve come for a briefing.”

“Very nice. Foxtrot Uniform.”

“Quebec Bravo.”

“Nope. Have another go.” 

We wasted several from our bag of passwords when, in desperation , I blurted out:

 “Charlie Kilo.”

“At last,” said our tormentor.

The same thing happened the next day and we realised that, contrary to proper practice, whoever had been given the task of coming up with the security check had formulated them to actually spell a word. Each day for the next seven days we guessed our way through, culminating with the crescendo that was:

“Whisky Alpha.”

“November Kilo.”

Someone must have noticed because the next time we couldn’t get in and I had to wait outside whilst Steve bummed a trip inside with a chap from another unit. He came back with a new batch of things to say; this time they didn’t spell anything.

At the end of White Rhino, we found ourselves policing a strategic bridge which was being defended by infantry. Our task was real time policing and we were to hold up the traffic whilst an airborne assault was made. For a long time, all was quiet and we bimbled up and down enjoying the warm sunshine. A farmer with a large herd of cows wandered along a side street so we stopped the traffic to let him cross the bridge. Suddenly, the sound of helicopters came nearer.

I don’t know where they went but they began to fade away and one German driver, in particular, was getting impatient. He was nudging the legs of the pointsmen with his car. It was the lad who’d been casevaced. After being spoken to several times it was getting worse and I was getting fed up. I went over to him, completely ignoring the fact he had his missus and kids in the car, and told him, in German, he was a shithouse. He went off like a defective rocket; there was no five second fuse. He leaped from the car and we were nose to nose. Luckily, at that point all hell broke loose.

The helicopters swooped in low and fast from a totally different direction and disgorged what I think was 10 Para (TA) almost directly onto the bridge. Heavy fighting immediately took place. When I say that, I actually mean heavy fighting took place. Hand to hand stuff. Panicked cows were careering all over and Steve was standing with arms at full stretch between two squaddies who were intent on clubbing each other even more senseless than they already were. I don’t know how, but we managed to get the situation under control with some help from the umpires. I think 10 Para won, on points.

Speaking of bridges-The British Army likes to blow up bridges on exercises. Not actually blow them up but notionally blow them up. This allows the Royal Engineers to pretend they’re fixing them and the Military Police to annoy all the local civilians by preventing them from driving home to their loved ones. The reality is that unless the bridge doesn’t exist anymore, for real, there’s no sensible reason to stop civilian traffic from going about its lawful business. Military traffic - no problem. Civilains - why?

Now, Gazza had been standing on a point at the entrance to a village directing all the traffic somewhere else for hours. In fact, he’d been at it all day. There were two things that didn’t sit happily with him. The first was he’d been told by his sergeant to re-direct all vehicles because the small ‘bridge’ over a culvert beyond the ‘dorf’ had been declared ‘blown’ by the umpires and the second was he’d been left with no rations other than a packet of sticky, boiled sweets; the promise of rations to come resulted in squat. To say he was pissed off was a slight understatement. Tempers at the junction into and out of the village had become frayed. When I arrived with his delayed 24 hour rat pack, he’d already had enough. The co-incidental arrival of his smiling sergeant served only to aggravate him further and when a passing non-compliant German driver insulted him and gave him the finger it was too much. The Sergeant’s news that the culvert had been repaired (despite it not needing it in the first place) pushed him over the edge.

Words were said. Gaz stormed off throwing his ID card and MP warrant card in the bushes. The Sergeant did what most Army sergeants do, he shouted things. I scampered after my mate, picking up the discarded items. I followed him down to a meadow where I found him sitting on the grass. He unloaded his 9 milli Browning and handed it and the fully charged magazine to me saying, “I’ve fucking had enough of this shit.” I sat down next to him and we talked.

At the end of it, he took the weapon back and said, “Fuck! I’ll have to try and find my cards now.” I handed them back to him with the promise of a beer.

The only problem was that someone had declared it a booze free exercise. I doubt it was exercise wide, probably just for us – we were carrying live rounds because of the IRA terrorist threat of the time. I just saw it as a challenge and after all, I’d made a promise.

Back at our base of operations (a large open car park in a nearby town) I told my Staff Sergeant I’d run out of fags and couldn’t really operate without some. It was bollocks, I had 200 in my bergan. I whined so much about it he gave me 20 minutes to disappear and find some from somewhere. No problem, route signing had led us past a small gastätte not far away and that’s where I headed. I came back with a packet of twenty HB to display and two six packs of the local beer.

Now, I knew it was the Staffy’s birthday so I sidled up to him, wishing him many happy returns and told him I’d left him a bottle of beer as a  birthday present behind the passenger seat of our Land Rover. He thanked me for my kindness. I left him directing traffic and crawled under the cam nets of Gazza’s vehicle. The change in his countenance when I gave him two beers was reward enough though he did question whether it was safe for us to imbibe. I told him the birthday story and cracked one open.

Not all annual camps involved the delights of Germany and at one in Wathgill, UK, there was a mass TA RMP gathering with all sorts of activities organised. Each unit’s cooks were taking it in turns, for a couple of days at a time, to cook the meals. When not so employed, the cooks were required to take part along with everyone else. One day, we walked in to find breakfast consisted of sausages, bacon, beans and one inch squares of what looked like margarine but which was, in reality, meant to be scrambled egg; the result of one of the trainee cooks not realising he had to stir the mixture. It had the consistency of cheese but none of the flavour. The next evening, huge consternation was caused when it was declared that chips were off the menu. It transpired that one of the ‘cooks’ had poured engine oil in the chip fryer thinking it was chip oil and there were no more potatoes. Thankfully, the second week, the RAF regiment arrived and we ate like kings.

It was at this same camp that I thought I’d take advantage of a free weekend and, instead of going to visit the local town or joining the coach party to some museum, I went to visit my old Army mate, Barry Shaw; I’d brought my car specially. I checked the daily detail, just to make sure there were no last minute obstructions.

After a pleasant afternoon and evening, I returned to camp the next morning to discover that some evil bastard had decided to have a Church parade on the main square. I actually walked through the gate and passed them all with my head sunk into my shoulders and gaze averted in the hope that no one would see me. On reaching the barrack block, I thought if I hastily changed into uniform I could use one of my ‘Rodger the Dodger’ excuses, if I was lucky enough not to have been seen by anyone. I started to get changed and got as far as buttoning up my shirt when I realised I couldn’t remember what they’d been wearing. Was it full combats or just combat jacket and lightweights? No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t remember and not having looked properly in the first place was now proving to be a major disadvantage. The SSgt sent to get me found me hiding in the toilets in my underpants. Charges were threatened. I spiritedly pointed out that, although no one had said I could go, they hadn’t actually said I couldn’t  and it wasn’t all my fault as I was not to know about the Church parade when I left. After leaving me dangling for a few hours, it was quietly swept away, as were a lot of things in the camp with me at the end of the brush. Ah, well, whilst doing that shit in my time, I wasn’t doing other shit in theirs.

On yet another occasion, we were doing a sort of a night obstacle course. It involved us spending time in red light getting our night vision then traversing a small river using a rope bridge (you walked on the bottom rope whilst holding the one above you). This was to be followed by crawling into a building with very restricted spaces and trying to find your way out through a short tunnel system, the point of which was to emerge in the centre some of kind of fort. It was dark, I didn’t see much.

We had a bloke called Geoff Chan. He was a big bugger and a good lad. Later, when I was getting divorced, I lived with him for several months, though not in the Biblical sense! He was a good cook and did some brilliant Chinese meals. Anyway, with his Mk IV helmet on, he looked like an overgrown North Vietnamese soldier. In the red light, the resemblance was even more startling. To entertain ourselves we all, including him, started shouting, “You VC! You VC!”  It was hilarious...but only if you’d been there. The Instructor outside must have thought we’d gone stir crazy. Coming out with night vision acquired we proceeded to the rope ‘bridge’. All was going well until Mister Bealey took his camera out, flash on, and shouted cheese! Oddly enough, when he got them printed, we were all smiling.

 Next, we blindly staggered to the little building with the hidden exit. Apparently, according to the Sgt who manned this obstacle, we were running behind time, so he helped everyone to get through the hatch situated low on the wall. We were wearing combat webbing: ammo pouches, water bottle, kidney pouches, NBC protective kit rolled up in a holder on the rear, a respirator in its case and a tin hat, so it was always going to be a tight squeeze. As soon as the first one was in, he shovelled the next one in. The first man in was the biggest, Geoff Chan; half the inside of the building taken up already. At one point we couldn’t move in there and started begging the Sgt to stop shoving people in. He mistook the waggling legs of the man currently in the hatch way, who was trying to get back out, for a sign he needed help to get in and thought kicking him in the arse would be helpful. Eventually, the smallest person there managed to get his webbing off and after crawling through our legs and several shouts of, “Argh! You’re on my fucking hand, you knob,” he got out and walked round to tell the Sgt who, not expecting someone to tap him on the shoulder, nearly had a heart attack and had to sit on a tree stump for a couple of minutes to recover. We all made it to the ‘fort’ but it was an anticlimax. Whatever had been there waiting for us had got bored and fucked off. 

At Holcombe training Area, running down the close quarter battle range (designed by my dad, making the best of what was there) I once lost a magazine of live 9mm rounds which had been 'secured' in the practically useless 58 pattern webbing ammo pouch. Reaching the end of the run, I needed a reload to blat the last three targets. Gun firing, gun stops. Safety on, down on one knee, working parts back. No rounds in the breech, no rounds in the magazine. Magazine off, in pouch, new charged magazine on. New charged magazine on?

When I failed to do any more and my targets had disappeared from view, I broke the bad news to Bernie, the SSgt running the range, and to Tony Mercer, the OC, who had followed me down. We quickly retraced my steps. This was serious. He kept muttering, “Board of Enquiry” and was very pale. We figured out it must have happened when I did a mag change in the swollen beck, which had been up to my thighs. We waded up and down, to no avail, and then Captain Mercer handed me his beret and stuck his face fully in the water and waddled about like a feeding duck. He found it, eventually, and gave me a chastising look, “Fucking hell! Corporal A, you had me going there,” he said, as if it had all been an elaborate prank.

A few months later, I 'pranked' him again when we spent half an hour searching through some thickets to find the barrel of an LMG (Light Machine Gun - basically the old wartime Bren gun updated). I hadn’t secured it back onto the weapon properly after practicing some drills (it wasn't intentional!). The first blank I fired sent it shooting off into the darkness. I didn’t see the look he gave me on that occasion but he swore a lot.

You’d have thought, after this, they would have known better but it seems not and they sent me on a promotion course to the Depot at Chichester. There were three other TA guys there, one of whom I knew. None of us knew the bloke from Northern Ireland who turned out to be a hoot. He had us in stitches most of the time. He’d refused promotion but undeterred his OC sent him on the course telling him he was just there to help out. The rest were Regulars made up of people from various Provost Companies, a few SIB guys and a close protection PTI. A real good bunch. It was nearing Christmas and the course was quite physical. It seems they kept changing the format, either to find one that was satisfactory or simply to keep everyone on their toes. All I know is that everything the last bloke from Manchester told me didn’t apply.

The two things of note for me were the log runs and the final exercise. Log runs: Definitely not something I had any experience of, given my aversion to pain, fear of parachutes and dislike of extreme physical exertion. There we were, with one DS (Directing Staff) in particular to the fore. Tich Cox. As usual, there had to be a ‘competition’ between the two syndicates. I’m not sure how far we ran but I honestly wondered several times if we were ever going to stop. I was quite fit at the time, as a result of being in a specialist uniform department back in Merseyside. I had good upper body strength and was used to running anything from 3 to 10 miles but I have to say this was tough. To a Para, it would have been a breeze, but we weren’t Paras. A few of us fitter ones helped the less fit by taking more turns on the log until we were the only ones carrying them. I had Tich Cox on the back of mine so there was a disparity in height and my ears were hurting with the banging of the log and Tich’s constant calls of, “Go on, big fella! You’re doing well. Go on!” I’m not sure if he knew it but there was little likelihood of my stopping because he was propelling me along. 

The final exercise: Suffice it to say this involved being awake for a long, long time whilst completing multiple route signing tasks, at least three hours of which was spent, on a gloriously sunny winter's day, in full NBC kit and rubber respirator (gas mask to non-squaddies). It wasn't comfortable. Close to sunset, we arrived in some woods and were told we were being bedded down for the night.

We dug as many holes in the ground as we could. I spent my time helping a few of the guys to build bijoux little residences but then found I didn't have any more time to dig my own. I opted for a shell scrape between two trees, flung up my poncho and lined the ground with some material known as CARM. It was a sort of polypropylene sheet, grey in colour. There was snow on the ground and the wood was freezing. I wrapped my sleeping bag loosely around myself and, protected from the wind, I was as cosy as I've ever been. I closed my eyes and had just started to drift away when hell broke loose: blinding flashes and deafening bangs as ‘Thunderflashes’ exploded, smoke drifting through trees and enveloping the vehicles, shouts, confusion and the insane beauty of sub-machine guns, on full auto, blasting flames into the night.

Late the following day, knackered, we cleaned the kit and returned it to stores just in time to be told we were going out again on a night navigation exercise. To cut a long story short, it was an even longer night which found four of us, the following evening, standing outside a pub in East Dean having made a couple of bad tactical decisions, telling Tich Cox we would finish but it was going to be quite some time before we got back to Chi. One of the lads had picked up a leg injury and another had severe chafing of his ample and, I’m sure, normally resplendent thighs. He showed us all, though to this day I still wish he hadn’t. I’d been carrying a GS Bergen and the man pack radio (someone else had the spare battery) and I had to cough it was too much (I never said I wasn’t a wimp!). The guy with the leg injury had a civilian rucksack but said he couldn’t keep going if he had to carry it. Tich told me bluntly to fuck off when I asked to leave the radio in the back up Land Rover. Instead, he put it on, threw my GS Bergen in the back and gave me the civilian one. Bliss. My shoulders, that had been screaming pain, now wanted to kiss me. Off we went. Shortly after, we climbed a hill I’d stood on 6 months earlier, during a 40 km walk. On that occasion I’d declared, “I wouldn’t want to walk up this with a pack on my back.” I don’t know why I kept saying these things.

We got to a well known hill called the Trundle. Tich had kept us going with a selection of the world’s worst jokes. Did we want to go the short sharp way or the long shallow way? The long shallow way sounds fine, we agreed. “Good,” he said, “Short and sharp it is.” So, up we went. At the top every blister I had burst at the same time. I had to sort them out. Two minutes max, I assured him. He let me sit down whilst they went on. Having lathered my feet in compeed, I set off to catch them up. It was dark, it was cold but suddenly, with fresh feet, I got a surge of energy that lasted all the way to the back of the barracks. The others had slowed down but I knew if I didn’t keep my pace up, I would seize up. Tich let me go ahead and kept a watchful eye.

I’d been singing various songs to myself and was fine until I decided to sing Elvis Presley’s ‘Old Shep’. It used to make me cry as a kid and that’s exactly what happened now. The tears ran down my face but still I kept singing it in my head, gripping my SMG tighter. A man with a dog came up behind me. He glanced at me, as he passed, and smiled. I gave him a nod, tears flowing from my eyes. He crossed over and after 20 metres or so turned round and called. “Keep going, son! You can do it!”

I threw him a wave then turned down a side road, heading for the last turn and home. I knew I was going to make it. I was never not going to make it but I did this last stretch sobbing; the bloke had given me encouragement when he didn’t have to, it meant a lot, too much in fact. I couldn’t help it. Luckily, I just managed to pull myself together in the last 30 metres, entering the Depot in a manly fashion.

After de-kitting, weapons handed in, it was a quick shower then across to the ‘Septic Ferret’, directly opposite the camp gates. Normally the refuge of the Depot’s instructors, tonight I would pass through its hallowed doors for the very first time. I stepped off the kerb. The pain was indescribable (so I won’t even try). Suddenly my legs had seized. Like Frankenstein’s monster, I hobbled towards the opposite kerb. This was taking longer than anticipated. A quick look to my left. The approaching car didn’t look as far away as it once had. Old people on crutches were much more sprightly. The car horn blared and I must have looked, in the glory of full beam, like Paul McCartney on the cover of ‘Band on the Run’. I made it though, but only just. 

The guard, on the roof of the barracks’ Keep, called down, “Oi, mate, I thought you weren’t going to make it for a second there.” He was grinning. I waved back and threw him a ‘grinace’ (half grin half grimace) then looked at the steps into the Septic Ferret. This could take a while.      

FIBUA (or Fighting In a Built Up Area). Training for house defence and clearance. Salisbury Plain: At the little ‘estate’ there, which looked as if the builder went bust just after the roofs went on, it had been a hot and very sweaty day already by the time we moved in to prepare for the next day’s activities. To be quite candid, my bum was sore. In one of the houses, I searched through my rucksack for the ‘special’ cream I had somewhere but couldn’t find. One of the lads volunteered some stuff he had handy which he swore by. I put it on and got into my sleeping bag. Ten minutes later my arse was on fire. I tried to last it out but when it got to the point where I had tears in my eyes I got up and slid outside to the edge of an empty building, two doors up.

Realising that without the knife I’d forgotten to bring I wouldn’t be getting my underpants (soldier speak – shreddies) off easily and knowing I couldn’t make it back, I stripped off my boots and pants, removed my under garment and wiped my arse with it. I had brought my water bottle though and its cool contents brought instant relief. I folded my ‘shreddies’ and dried my bum with them then went further into the garden and, after two or three ‘twirls’ to get some momentum, lashed them into the bushes. Unbeknownst to me, all this was being avidly watched by the DS (Directing Staff – Instructors) who were testing out their new night vision gear.    

The following day, after practising fighting into and through various blank houses we became the defenders for the night. We secured our little house against the intruders. We did such a good job the attackers, who were the DS, eventually cheated and told our Boss the scenario was over. We were to take the window barricades down and let the breeze clear the house whilst we ventilated ourselves on the field at the back. The smell of CS gas filled the air. But something wasn’t right - it had been too easy - so we only removed the back door. Yep, sure enough: schermuly’s, thunderflashes and the sound of blanks. We were back inside in a flash, ‘door’ hastily replaced and the battle raged again. Eventually, we were running out of ammo and the pyro was all gone. Barry Chuckle, otherwise known as my mate Mark, had bought some ‘bangers’ on a day trip to France and resorted to throwing them out the window whilst shouting ‘Grenade!’

So many smoke grenades had been thrown in by our attackers that it was impossible to keep throwing them back and we navigated our way around by touch. Someone, one of ours, poured the contents of a sandbag over the heads of the invading DS as they tried to breech the front door. I leant out through the billowing smoke just after this, stuck a cigarette in my mouth and called, “Any of you chaps got a light?”

 They’d got in downstairs and were throwing more smoke grenades. There were 21 in all by the time we had to surrender. It was a small house.

 The next day, we stood on parade, our Sgt had morfed into a Smurf overnight. He was completely blue in colour from where the smoke dyed sleeping bag he’d used gave up its secret as he’d slept.

The RSM announced a presentation for an outstanding soldier, who had distinguished himself during the course of the camp and particularly the previous night. My stomach was in knots. I knew it was my name they would call out because I’d worked fairly closely with the man when he was the Det Stickman and I knew the nuances of his face and voice when he was taking the piss.  Yep! Bang on! Out I marched waiting for the inevitable. My little eyes were everywhere but where it mattered. ”Just stand here, next to the wall, so everyone can get a better look at you,” he said as he placed my medallion, the lid from a box of schermuly’s, around my neck. I braced myself. I was waiting for the water from the crowd. Nothing happened. I relaxed and received a bucket of sand from above. Jeez, the ‘Mancs’ hate scousers.

My last Exercise with Manchester Detachment, 116 Provost Company, RMP(V) was a logistics one that made all the UK newspapers for being the largest movement of military vehicles in the UK since WW2. We ended up sampling the delights of Stranraer and the surrounding beautiful countryside.

On Endex being called, a section of us were given the job of policing the control and movement of vehicles from the massive holding area that had been set up. The rest of the platoon were to monitor and assist the movements of the convoys using the main route to the south.

 The WO1 (Warrant Officer 1st class) in overall command of the movements had been very firm about what he wanted and how he wanted it done. Anyone who tried to “pull the wool and escape early”, he told me was to be sent to him. He was a decent guy, pleasant, professional, non-condescending but firm and you just knew that fucking him about would be a big mistake.

Well, some people tried bullshitting their early release and then declined the offer of a meeting with him. All was fine until a cocky Rupert, from a North East TA unit, turned up with his senior rank fan club stuffed in the rear of his Land Rover.

Kev was our security ‘pointsman’ at the exit point alongside our Traffic Post. It became obvious he was encountering resistance. The engine was being revved like it was on a formula one starting grid and the driver began edging forward. I watched the passenger door being dragged open by Kev and words spoken before he waved me over.

 Polite explanations as to why they were going nowhere soon failed to penetrate and my patience wore thin. To be fair to me, I was going through a particularly acid divorce and my tolerance level had dropped proportionately, not for the first time. Previously, the cause had been an argumentative Major at a Skill at Arms meeting held near Liverpool. Engaged in car parking and security near the main entrance, I’d stopped his chauffeur driven saloon and explained the signing in procedure.  The instructions from the Brigadier were quite clear but the Major was having none of it. He was late, he told me. I told him it wasn’t my problem. The conversation went downhill from there resulting in him jumping out and invading my personal space in an attempt to intimidate me. I pointed out that if he’d complied with the instructions he’d have been on his way by now. Apparently, I was being impertinent. Bernie, my SSgt stepped in to calm the situation and I returned to our control post.

Shortly after, I peered out of our tent to see Bernie nose to nose with the little idiot. Seeing as his fed up driver had driven off to park up and sign in, the Major stormed off threatening death and destruction. Bernie, called the event control and spoke to the Brigadier who we later found out almost fashioned the Major a new anus. I made sure I gave the Major a nice salute when he left later on. We both knew what it meant.

Back to Stranraer, well this time, I was thrilled to be blessed with a trainee stand up comedian with a bad attitude and one pip on his shoulder. I told him to step out. He refused. I leaned in and quietly told him he could step out or I would drag him out. He got out. At least one of his fan club started to clamber out the back in support until Kev stepped in and explained the dire consequences should his foot touch the ground. Without raising his voice, Kev’s presence and command of the situation was superb. The SNCOs meekly slid back into the vehicle.

Meanwhile, I led the Rupert behind cover then firmly, and as calmly as I could, told him the score and the consequences of non-compliance. I may have pointed out some of my civilian policing credentials and used the phrase, ‘I don’t take crap from Liverpool toe-rags and I’m certainly not taking it from you, you little shit! I expect more from an Officer.’ I may have said a bit more. Anyway, when I’d satiated my displeasure, I suggested we go back and start all over again. He apologised. He hadn’t realised. I saluted him. Back at the vehicle, we started again. They drove back into the holding area.

Not long after this, I found it was becoming increasingly difficult to balance divorce, work and Man Det’s  expectance of commitment. Luckily I was approached to join the TA SIB. I pointed out that I’d only ever been an ‘Aide to CID’ (the forerunner of the Trainee Detective course). It didn’t matter, things were serious, they had shortages, good people were needed. I still wasn’t sure if I fitted the bill. I went anyway and I was promoted to Sergeant for my effort!

They turned out to be a decent bunch of people. Initially, there were some glitches, senior ranks micro managing and forming a clique around the OC but the new infusion of capable people, who’d brought their sense of humour with them, slowly eroded the far end of the bar gang to two individuals, both of which were not the OC who’d crossed over from the dark side and was having a laugh with the rest of us. I think he found the eclectic and sometimes irreverent conversations more refreshing.

One of my first weekends with them was, oddly enough, a provost ops exercise, route signing. The staffy in charge had no personal knowledge of me or my new oppo, a constable from Lancs County’s mounted department, so decided our map reading skills were shit and that he knew better. Give him his due, he stuck to his guns and ignored any attempt we made to tell him he was signing the route upside down. We graciously said nothing when the OC pointed it out to him because he was a genuinely really nice fella and had bought us a packet of crisps and a coke. 

On another weekend, we found ourselves watching a demonstration concerning the setting up of pot flares. There was a fine drizzle, we were tired and wet, it was 3am, pitch black and a regular soldier was explaining a very dangerous item whilst numbering off a list of things that could go wrong if you didn’t know what you were doing. Apparently, if you made a particular mistake, the flare could ignite causing very serious burns, if not fatal ones. We weren’t sure exactly what the mistake was because we couldn't see anything other than a bloke with a fading torch fiddling with a 'pot' on a 'stick'. Normally, at Manchester, we did these things in daylight. Something to do with ... being able to see what the fuck was going on.

There was a handful of people in our unit who were very important in their civvy jobs, so they told us. They were all police officers and because they were so important they carried pagers and mobile phones. Not just one of each but several. They had briefcases to put them in.

Anyway, one day this bloke sashayed in, flung his briefcase open, displaying several pagers and phones (he even had two on his belt) and commenced to tell us all how busy he’d been at work, how he nearly didn’t make it and how there was a big job on for which he was essential and therefore might have to leave at a moment’s notice. The Lancs County bobby, with a sharp, dry sense of humour, wandered over and the conversation went:

 “How much are they, mate?” 

“What?”

“The phones and pagers. I’ll give you twenty quid for that one.”

“What?”

“You’re selling them, aren’t you?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, you must be. You’ve got so many. I’ll give you thirty if I can have that one and a cover. If you need time to think about it, I’ll be over there.” He then sauntered off.

On my first annual camp with the SIB, we went to Rheindahlen. It was the main headquarters for British Forces in Germany. It was big. Now, I have to say, and forgive me if I’ve said it before, but regular RMP tend to have a reasonably low impression of the RMP TA units which is probably fed by peer pressure, never having worked with them and simple self importance. I know. I’ve seen it from both sides. Well, the SIB were no different.

‘The powers that were’ decided to hold an exercise especially for us to see how we performed in a field environment based on being somewhere like Bosnia. The actual, on the ground, DS were for the most part great, some even apologetic. They knew what most of us quickly realised. Ostensibly, it was designed to ‘bring us up to speed for a possible future deployment’, but it became obvious they also hoped to show us up as a bunch of incompetent amateurs. This seemed to originate from the senior officers there.

They put us through some basic provost ops and military training crap, condescendingly explained to us by various Officers. By the time we graduated to the broken down HGV next to the bomb at a check point with a bunch of squaddies dressed as hostile women protesters whilst being sniped at by a comically dressed bloke in a bush on a small hill, some of us were having difficulty keeping it together. The more we resolved the more complicated and unlikely the scenario became. In answer to the Officer demanding what we were going to do about the sniper, we peppered his hideout bush with practically all the blanks we had and carried on. Apparently, he was immortal. In response to someone’s remark of “This is bollocks” one of the DS replied quietly “I know, but it’s what they want.”

Well, we did our best but when the sniper started being a pest again the OC’s sense of humour came to the fore. He grabbed a megaphone and started shouting, “You! You up there in the bush! I can see you! Stop that immediately, it’s not helping matters.” Another blank round whizzed our way. The OC replied with, “Right! That’s it. Stand up immediately!” A bloke stood up. I think he must have been the ‘spotter’, he was laughing. The OC shouted, “No, not you! The one with the big gun! I know who you are. While I’m shagging your mother tonight, I shall tell her about your behaviour.” There was a pause then another blank ‘whizzed in our direction’. Crouched behind a Land Rover, we fell about in pleats of laughter, even some of the DS were smiling, those that hadn’t seen the senior Officer turn up.

Well, what followed were more diverse activities, interspersed with a visit to the Q stores and then Birchy, another ex Man Det guy, and I found ourselves tasked to investigate an alleged assault in the middle of the night. All the usual suspects were thrown in and it started to feel like Agatha Christie had gone mental. What we didn’t know was the designer(s) of the exercise had sprinkled about, here and there, phrases the ‘actors’ had been instructed they must hear before divulging certain information.  For example, whereas a normal person might expect an answer from a perfectly logically worded question none would be received if we hadn’t said something like, “I am a Military Police Sergeant and I am ordering you to ...” It was that sort of thing. Problem was, me and Birchy, who was in Manchester’s Robbery Squad, didn’t know this and we kept on asking stuff that usually worked in civvy street. By the time we met the supposed offender we were tired and fed up. Our suspect turned out to be an RMP SSgt and he played his part to the full. The frustration of not being able to unlock his secrets started to turn into ‘a funny half hour’. We got the giggles and the staffy’s facial expressions weren’t helping any. In desperation, we told him to step behind his vehicle where, between bouts of tittering like two schoolgirls, we informed him we were going to give him a damn good rolling in the mud if he didn’t cough it. We had all the evidence, he was bang to rights. Suddenly, he relaxed and began chuckling. The Officer hiding in the bushes observing had got up and left. The staffy had been trying to alert us to his presence but we had been too far gone to realise the meanings of the eye rolling and twitching.

 The finale was a pitch black investigation of a rape allegation and sadly for the event planners this was the forte of the OC and several others. When we didn’t call for notional forensics they thought they had us until it was explained that two of the guys were among their forces’ experts in the subject. A load of statements and other paperwork later, all compiled by tilly lamp light or torch, Birchy and I, with a couple of others, were sent out to arrest the offenders who were sat in a Land Rover on small hill. Unfortunately, the squaddie actors refused to get out of the vehicles when ordered to and we had to revert to a more hands on approach than the watching officer was keen on. Again, it turned out that a simple instruction to get out of the vehicle had to be prefaced with ... yep... “I’m a Military Police Sergeant and I’m ordering you to get out of the vehicle.” Had we only known but then again it was an easy mistake to make bearing in mind we wore MP flashes and said “Get out of the vehicle, now.”

The following week, we all headed out for various attachments to working SIB Dets. Birchy and I went to Bielefeld where we were told everything had been happening but now wasn’t. They gave us a car and we bimbled off to Münster just so I could see the old places again. As I recall, the Provost Unit there had moved from Winterbourne and was based back in York Barracks. Nothing was happening; almost everyone was out on exercise. The Mess there had all the atmosphere of an an empty shed so we headed out for my journey of remembrance and I insisted that we tried a bratwurst and chips. It didn’t taste as good as I remembered but we had a beer and headed back to the Mess. Something wasn’t quite right. After a good puke, or several, and a short kip we shuffled into the bar for an Underberg and a few beers. There’s only so many times you can say sorry to a mate who’s insisting you tried to kill him. It was an early night. Later, at the end of the week, we were taken out by Bielefeld Det’s cast and crew for an Italian meal. Whilst we were deciding on desserts, one of them got a pager message. Apparently, a child protection matter had cropped up. Someone else decided they needed help. Off they went. We ate dessert and ordered more beers. Another pager and another body disappeared.

 Birchy, despite his boyish blond good looks, was a shrewd operator with a dry sense of humour. He insisted they would filter off, one by one, until only we were left with the bill. I poopooed the notion but sure enough it’s what happened. I’m not sure if we ever got the money back, I’d like to think we did.

In following years, I would fulfil my commitment by doing attachments to SIB units more local to me. I did one at Donnington and another two at Preston, three weeks at a time usually. At Donnington, on the first day, I collected a Land Rover and headed down to Brecon for a week or so on an inquiry that led me to an overnighter in Cardiff. My bedroom in the Brecon Castle Hotel had a four poster bed but the smallest bath I’ve ever seen. The accommodation in Cardiff was a bit more basic and reminded me of ‘The Scotch 67 squaddie bar meets Crossroads Motel’.

Evidence gathered, and a few other side issues discovered, it wasn’t my job to interview the offender. A Territorial senior rank, he was on holiday and due to return after my attachment had ended.

My reception as an SIB investigator was good. I was only a Sergeant but I sat and had tea with a grizzled Garrison Sergeant Major (served by a Staff Sergeant), had coffee and a couple of hob nobs with a Lieutenant Colonel and took witness statements from several Captains and Majors, who were reticent at first until I told them my background and intention to write their statements sympathetically (they were all content with the result). I didn’t see it as my job to unnecessarily take people down when the issue subject of the investigation was the fault of the system.

My last day at Donnington, I was left to my own devices when the staff attended a Courts Martial. The man in charge, who for me was the archetypal SIB WO2, asked me to sort out all the formal situation reports and updates that needed to be sent to all and sundry in the military setup. I remembered spending many hours reading this stuff, years ago, as a regular MP and the format dimly shimmered around my brain. I knew it was part test and part expediency and wanted to get it right. I plundered the filing cabinets, read some stuff then waded through some 10 or 15 messages that needed to be sent that day. When finished, I put them on the Sergeant Major’s desk.

Five thirty, he walked in, called me to his office, took out his pen and one by one went through the notices, pen hovering. It was redundant. He looked up and smiled, thanked me for my efforts then opened his drawer and gave me a tie from the Hong Kong Anti Corruption Unit. I took off the tie I was wearing, the ‘regimental’ tie of the Operational Support Division (OSD), Merseyside Police’s elite, the one with the coiled and waiting cobra, except this one also had a fresh curry stain. He didn’t seem to mind and later wrote me up a glowing attachment report, so glowing, in fact, that my OC and Platoon Commander both phoned me at home to congratulate me and ask me how the fuck I’d managed it. I’d gone from caterpillar to butterfly in their estimation.

But, it all had to end sometime, as everything does. Finally, I’d decided a homelife had to come first and so after eleven years with Manchester Detachment and five with 83 Section SIB (V) I handed my kit in and paid the storeman a £10 note to ignore certain deficiencies.

Although time tends to dim some memories there are things I’ll always recall (this book is evidence of that). The camaraderie is one and ... well ... there’s simply some phrases I could never forget. I don’t think the circumstances in which they were spoken adds anything to the bewilderment they produced when first heard:

“If that’s a triangle, my back foot’s a kipper!”

“Cpl Budiko! Those toilets are a shithouse!”

“There has been a lot of rumour and speculation about Sergeant .... leaving us. I would like to put an end to it. Sergeant ..... has left and let that be an end to the matter.”

But, for me, the classic was:

“Those who are going early, see me before you go and if you don’t see me, go anyway.”

I can remember all the faces but not always the names. Sometimes it’s the other way round.

Some of us had nicknames. The more pleasant ones were: Robbo, Norah Batty, Cheesewire, Big Tiff, Little Tiff, Lobber, Pizza Face, Alfiepotomus, Gazza, Jizumee, KD and Fat Wallet.

Mine was Paddy, for obvious reasons. Sometimes shortened to Pad.

Otherwise, it was just their names: Ade, Pete, Mark, Ritchie, Steve, Stuart, Gary, Martin, Jason, Bernie, Carl, Dave and Kev are but a few. All sound lads, the sort you’d put it on the line for.

And yes, I have to say, once or twice, especially in the very early days, when patrolling Holcombe Moor looking for Russian parachutists dressed as nuns, I did feel like I was Private Pike, but that was more about me than the TA.