SOLDIER'S NIGHTS
Soldier? Who would want to be one? From what you see of them on TV drama they are all well down the working class,
a very rough and tumble lot, most of them more trouble than they are worth. The NCOs scream obscenities in the faces of the
lower orders (a direct import from the USA) and the officers are either remnants from the toffee nosed
brigade or look like car unsuccessful salesmen. Its not really like that at all.
How times must have changed since I left at the end of 79. Mind you I was in the Royal Signals, and we
always considered ourselves a cut above the rest of the motley, even if it was never said out loud. Certainly we at the technical
heart of the Corps considered ourselves as the mainspring of the whole operation. Years of training leading through rigorous
selection to further long term training of degree standing taken with very wide and long experience put us in good stead when
it came to moving over into civilian life.
But at the end of the day we were still soldiers, and sometimes
life did get a bit rough. The rough times were usually earlier in ones career when one was in the early twenties in a field
unit. But a lot of it was fun and the social life was good.
But then I had a years spell in a field Signals unit in Germany at the age of 49, the oldest man in the Regiment. Living rough for up
to three weeks in German hilltop woods in the depth of winter is no joke. The
get togethers in the Mess after were always boisterous, The wives and girl friends there, drinking and dancing, and eats available.
Letting off steam.
You never really get used to all the moves, every two or three years, often more frequently. This gets complicated
when youve a grown family with schooling to consider. And the separations, this is where I feel sorry for those serving today,
Northern Ireland, and then Places like Kosovo or Bosnia, living in steel containers, then sleeping rough in village halls
or warehouses, acting as firemen or burying diseased cattle. The wives left looking after small children in flats in Germany somewhere or stuck living with Mum or the in-laws.
No wonder then that Service folk let off steam when theyve got the opportunity.
In Barracks there are the messes where there is always some kind of a programme of entertainment laid
on, even if it is only the monthly dining in night. These can be a bit of a bore
later in life, but for the younger there are the after dinner games. These are always very physical, can often lead to injury,
as happened to me, a broken knee cartilage. Sometimes, these nights are memorable, especially when someone is leaving.
I remember one night when we were losing a much-liked RSM on commissioning, when we decided after a lot
of alcohol had flowed to exit him for the last time from the Mess in style. We emptied one of the coffin shaped flower troughs
outside, gave it a rough clean out and laid him in it, complete in his number one dress. We shouldered him up and roared down
the length if the Ante room (lounge) and out into the night air. This would have been wholly successful if he had not raised
his head as he was about to pass under a door lintel. How he avoided being decapitated I do not know to the day. I shudder still when I think of it.
The dinner nights at one Officers Mess in Catterick, which served three regiments, could be quite impressive.
Everyone dressed in Mess kit and spurs. There was always the Corps band playing while we ate, and a lot of silver on display.
One trick was to remove the chair of some poor unfortunate who needed to absent himself for a few moments. On return to the
table, trying to make himself as inconspicuous a possible, he was faced with the embarrassment of having to pretend to be
seated when he was not, until he was taken pity upon. The penalty of a possessing a weak bladder.
In Palestine in my early days, when I was young and single and a Sergeant,
Mess life was beer and self-made entertainment. In Jerusalem with
only five Officers and six WOs and Sergeants, we used to spend alternate evenings in each others Messes, Everybody was expected
to contribute a song or a joke and there were the games. One favourite was the practice parachute jumps out of the Officers
Mess window, and we all went through the buckets of water wet landings.
In earlier barrack room days in Palestine, Ive
witnessed real, I was going to say live, Russian roulette played to settle an argument, luckily by a miracle nobody was killed.
The high-spot of the evening was take it in turns to put out the lights by shooting the bulbs. Dont ask
where we got the replacements. But I deviate.
Our days in Cyprus left us with many happy memories. Episkopi, where we were
stationed and housed, was perched at the top of high cliffs overlooking the sea. We lived in a brand new house a hundred yards
from the GHQ Signals office, which had its disadvantages. But the Mess life was good. Every Saturday evening a band and dancing
with supper was laid on. But this was only after a power struggle with the pro Tombola crowd. We were the envy of the other
Messes who led a much paler existence. Our bar sales soared and we then afford our own film shows and other luxuries. We used
to entertain the Navy when they visited, and we had some memorable weekends with the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders when
they came for R&R from chasing terrorists.
Sometimes we organised Squadron Barbecues down on the beach. We would put up a stage, decorate it with
coloured lights run from a gene, lay on a whole sheep butchered up and other eats. Some music and lots of games involving
getting into the sea, the favourite being rescue the WRAC ( Women soldiers) leading to much hilarity and I believe later romance.
We had some good-looking girls in the Signal Office.
I remember one evening returning home in the early hours in our swimwear to find that we had locked ourselves
out and pushing my Squadron Commander through our small pantry window, like a human battering ram.
Hong-Kong is a magic place by night. It never slows, it is truly a 24 hour city. Anne and I used to sit in our lounge,
perched high above Central (Victoria) looking out on the blaze of lights over several square miles. How can you pull the curtains and go to bed in a place
like that? Wed sneak out, the children in the care of the Amah and get ourselves down to the ManYee building,18th
floor, where there was our favourite night haunt, an italian night club, Gian Carlo. There was a restaurant with marble tables,
a band, a dance floor, and two floor shows a night, 11pm
and 1.00am. Who could resist it? I can hear that Italian band still.
One evening crowns all though. We were in Singapore stationed at Seletar, a large busy RAF airfield. The Mess there could not have been less than
three hundred yards long, with 600 members, RAF and Army. A fancy dress party to celebrate something or other was announced.
This did not mean getting togged up with a table cloth as an Arab, or the like. We took ourselves off to Bormanns, an establishment
in the city housed in a large wooden two-story building, where an old German man ran a fancy dress costume factory and store.
He had around a dozen women or more at sewing machines and the costumes they produced were out of this world.
We elected to have costumes made, Anne as a sort of Oriental Turkish dancing girl and I as a sort of male equivalent,
complete with curly toed shoes. We kept those costumes for years in the loft, but never really used them again. The night
itself was fantastic. 3000 people there, five bands, eight feeding points; what we called the downstairs bar, a circular sunken
area done out as Piccadilly. One entered via a London tube train.
Other rooms in the Mess had been similarly converted to London landmarks.
One could have spent the whole evening just looking open mouthed at the costumes. I remember the Station
Commander bringing a party consisting of a complete pack of playing cards. Amazing. We all had a wonderful time and I recollect
it as the only time I have drunk champagne out of a slipper, albeit a cardboard one!
I could go on. Later, we had winter breaks in Bournmouth with a the a party of Masons , not that I was
one, but we had many good friends among them. This was always a fancy dress affair on one of the nights, much hilarity and
more memories.
And so it goes on. But enough.
We have all had our good times and these are the ones that we remember.
Long live happy memorable nights!
Max Frost
30 Nov 2002
