I do not look back in anger. Rather I look at what I have (and have not) accomplished. I have four children; the eldest is a successful software engineer though I have not seen him for many, many years, Daughter number two and her husband are property millionaires and run a thriving holiday cottage business near Aberystwyth and daughter number one is possibly approaching that status. Daughter number three has a great job with Reed Exhibitions. Daughters two and three went to private school.
Here, among my brothers and sisters I am relaxed; I am able to express the real me. I was a boy from a Portsmouth council estate who became the senior clerk in the rank of Warrant Officer Class One in record time in The Parachute Regiment (it helped that my boss in 3 Para dropped dead in front of me at the age of 42 of a heart attack).
I had previously saved a drowning young girl using the kiss of life and, if he had not been so ugly I might have given it a go – but I knew straight away he had no hope. It is a Regimental myth that I answered the ‘phone and said ‘Chief Clerk here‘ moments after he croaked!
I treasure my photograph of all the Warrant Officers Class One of The Parachute Regiment with HM The Queen in July 1974 on the occasion of The Presentation of Colours to The Regiment at Aldershot.
I actually enlisted in The Marines in 1960; gave notice at my job and was just waiting for the travel warrant to Eastney Barracks when I received a letter stating that I was half an inch below the minimum required height, so sorry, but we cannot take you!
In true prospective Puffin mode I said fxxck you and signed on for The Parachute Regiment – their loss. It’s a funny old life!
We all have our strange little ways and have our own conceits and minor achievements to keep us warm in our old age. I can say that I twice played football for the British Army – not the real deal unfortunately but for the British Army in Bahrain and for the British Army in Guyana – still there were many to choose from in the two garrisons! They can’t take that away from me!
My flabber was really ghasted when I heard that Millitwat had boasted that his energy policy would be the envy of the World, like the NHS! The same twit who could not master a bacon roll!!??
I have first hand confirmation that, at a meat processing factory some twenty miles from Swansea, none of the workers are British. Public transport is near impossible from Swansea but looking around the car park I did not see any old bangers.
The town Centre indoor market is always buzzing – the same is true of the main shopping area in Portsmouth – lots and lots of indigenous and others out and about during working hours .I know the Eastern Europeans and some other groups want to, and will find work, but why are the white natives not working? Something terribly wrong.
I have not seen so many offices and organisations devoted to finding jobs, looking out for the welfare of various groups but, what I find interesting is a ‘Dementia Hub’ in the town centre.
Was on the M4 today and up ahead was a car braking every couple of hundred yards, tailgating in traffic going at fifty mph. I read long ago that at seventy mph the stopping distance on a good road, car in good order that it would take about one hundred and forty four feet to stop.
On major roads and certainly on motorways I keep what I call the Gilly Gap of about two hundred and ten feet – it has saved me twice. On the A34 I was beetling along in the inside lane when a car transporter pulled out from my left with no warning. On another occasion on the M25, in the outside lane, a car ahead just stopped suddenly with no warning. Bit hairy!
I was interested to read the observation that the introduction of margarine and also statins may have caused low cholesterol in some brains leading to dementia.
Nowadays I only eat proper butter and drink whole milk and twice took myself off statins after a week or so, It is absolutely the case that a lot of advice given by doctors over the past 100 years or so has been a load of bollocks. My first wife was told her symptoms were imaginary. Nine months later she was dead.
Find your own path and do it your way.
I spent some time in the library the other day in preparation of an upcoming article on The Battle of Arnhem. Lovely big, well equipped library attached tp the ginormous ugly concrete council offices.
I see no sign of lack of spend here (except for the litter adorning the streets). The NHS seems very efficient and appointments, even with specialists and for scans etc are pretty quickly arranged.
Since my time in The Regiment has coloured my life perhaps you will forgive me my mention of The Falklands.
I left the army in 1977 but a lot of my contemporaries were still around for that event. 3 Para’s capture of Mount Longdon was described as ‘The bloodiest battle of the Falklands War’
This was a night attack and they were told to expect around eight hundred Argentinian soldiers defending the Mount who were well dug in and provided with artillery cover from 3 x 150mm howitzers from Moody Brook and a further 155mm gun from Sapper Hill. In addition the area had been heavily mined.
The battalion group lost twenty three killed and forty three injured. Accounts vary on the Argentinian side with between thirty to fifty killed , a similar number were taken prisoner and one hundred and twenty wounded.
One Platoon Commander commented that he lost more men who were trying to recover their wounded comrades than were lost due to direct enemy action. This is not an aspect unique to Tte Regiment of course – it is part and parcel of the esprit de corps engendered in British servicemen and women. c.f. Blown Periphery’s tales of derring-do.
A couple of years ago I was invited to the Passing Out Parade of a recruit platoon of The Royal Green Jackets at Winchester. I asked the young soldier concerned what was his platoon song in training?
He looked at me a little askance and said ‘we didn’t have one’ When I joined up it was the first time I had met Geordies, Jocks, Welsh and Irish. Of the six that passed training, of the original starting intake of fifty, one was Welsh, one Southern Irish, two Geordies, one English and me Northern Irish/English mix.
We all sang while we did our bulling of boots, shrinking of berets, sorting kit etc and we had two songs – Running Bear by Johnny Preston and Lucky Old Sun by Frankie Laine . Fifteen years after the war we had some old sweats and we learnt a German marching song. I don’t remember the words apart from ‘I’ll give my life to The Fuhrer, I’ll give my life unto the Reich’ then something about a fraulein. All good stuff and it certainly helped to keep morale high.
I feel a bit like the written version of Rambling Sid Rumpo – but hey, it’s good to talk……………….
The lost Battalion
We used to think, when we were young.
when we were young and life was good
that we would live, and stay as strong,
and stay as strong. We thought we would.
Those days are now so long away
but young and strong we did not stay.Where are they now, those men I knew,
those men I knew, old friends of mine
that time we lived. What we went through,
the way we were, so bold, so fine,
of most of them I have no news
‘cept when they go; in ones or twos.Old Danny now, and Jim, and Pete,
long out of touch, but then I hear
their time ran out, admit defeat –
they were not old: my age or near,
Six hundred plus we were back then;
The Best of Days – live them again!
Postscript. ‘And so it begins, just heard that a grandson, aged 33, died suddenly this morning of a heart attack. He lived in Taiwan and was a big, strapping lad full of beans. He was married to a Taiwanese girl. I don’t know his jab history but the last I heard a while back was that he was studying in Australia……….’
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© Gillygangle 2024
