I meant Barry and I go back some way together.Quote:
Originally Posted by stubexpc@yahoo.co.uk
Printable View
I meant Barry and I go back some way together.Quote:
Originally Posted by stubexpc@yahoo.co.uk
JT as you say we go back along way, so yes a ribbing I can take, who is this other geezer no diamond I can tell you, but aye lets get this thread back on track mate
Bye
69
Barry
What about a certain RSM (No names mentioned) whilst called out on "Spearhead" to Belfast on a Herc (C130) from Lyneham we were up in the air when the RSM stood on the ramp counting the "heads" on the plane. The Load Master asked him what he was doing, he replied a "Head Check" Sir, in which the Load Master said but RSM we are 21000Ft, the RSM replied " You can't trust these B------s, they'll get anywhere".
CSM Crocker still lives around the corner from my old ma , his nephew Andrew was shot & killed on tour in Belfast nov 76Quote:
Originally Posted by richie264
I couldn't swim when I joined the Army!
I remember my 6'12" instructor (IJLB Oswestry - I was 15) giving it "Well - you'll be white water canoeing in a month's time if you can swim or not!"
They put a float in the front of my trunks and one in the back too, then took out the front one, then made the back one smaller, then put an inflatable armband in instead, then let more and more air out of it, then removed it and I was away.
My kids benefitted from my parents' mistakes - I taught each of them to swim by the time they were 3 or 4 in the same way - the youngest was in the olympic pool in Berlin.
I'd plonk a dirty great snorkel mask on them - get them to be OK with their heads underwater by playing games, blowing bubbles and making silly faces (I had a head start there!) at each other underwater and they were off without really realising it.
My eldest was a fantastic swimmer, he joined the Gatow Dolphins in Berlin and his coaches said that it would be a shame if he didn't keep it all up - reckoned he could represent the country some day.
He could do two lengths of an olympic-sized pool underwater.
Where was I?
was looking under the sink this morning an came across the ash try i was issued in junior soldiers . Even though Ive given up for four years now ,don't think i could part with it .In this non smoking land we live in now do the lads and lasses still have an ash try issued to them ?
When i first moved into Married Quarters, i came home late one night and asked my wife to get out of bed and make me a sandwich. After eating it i said to her , That was great, what was it. Crab paste, she snapped back. Well it was beautiful i said, where did you get it? Tescos? No she said, Boots the Chemist.
when i joined the depot September 72, we got £2 a week, but fags were only 10p for ten,so the money went quite far.
One of the best Sargent's i had was..sgt Danny donoven..(RIP)he always had time for us..
Thanks for leaving this thread open bob/al and the team.....
i remember my first week in the Bn day guard in lemgo front gate button for the barrier by the window as everyone does leaning against the wall around the corner came mouse cooper i didnt know him from adam all he said to me was are you comfortable by there my reply was not bad mate it wasnt nice but at least it got me off the gate for a couple of hours and proved i could count to 23 at least i knew who he was after that
Quote:
Originally Posted by tom33
if i lived in Ebbw Vale i would'nt go out either
Chow,
Danny Donavan (RIP) was my first Plt Sgt when I joined JS Coy in the Depot. What a sound guy. Size 6 Ammo Boots, but he could'nt half drive them into the parade square! Wages were £1.10 shillings a week. You are right you could by loads for that, however we were always skint 4 days later.
My first pay packet - age 15 - in Z Coy - IJLB Oswestry, was £1:14s:6d and the sixpence was a compulsory bingo ticket!
I don't remember if that had to last a fortnight or a week - surely a week - I was getting a quid a week on me paper round a few weeks before!
Not many RWF went through IJLB in my time there - Sullivan - Pat Dunne - Mike Carnell, Glen Nurse, Alan Ankers - struggling now.
Just like Chow & Paul Nash. Danny Donavan was my first pl sargent. & we use to get £2.00 a wk pay or was it a fortnight ???. Do you remember the training cpls saying 5 mins smoke break, I use to say I dont smoke cpl & they said run round the sq LOL. I learnt to keep my mouth shut LOL
danny donavan was my pln sgt and csm crocker was my sgt major in junior soldiers in 1974 had a great time zedder ex rrw.:smile:
It was 1976 one of the hottest summers on record when I went to the Depot . Frank Watkins , RSM Gill , Ginger the barber , POSB , the pig track , sugar loaf , that poxy fire cart and who remembers the 1 in 4 at the back of the camp ? What a hill . All my mates back home were sunning themselves in either Barry or Trecco . I was being bounced around Crickhowell with new boots , oversized combats , kf shirt , 58 pattern webbing and those tin helmets with the pin right in the centre of your head , great . "Get in the river and break those boots in you wa%$£rs" . Ozzy Lloyd and a guy called Mick Evans (D&D) were our section commanders . Affectionately known as Batterman and Robin . Mick would batter you into submission and Ozzy would rob you then share the proceeds with Mick . They used to collect our embassy and number 6 coupons for us on a daily basis so that we would not lose them !!! Every day in training was hard physical work and when we had the opportunity to pick a hobby for the evening it was great . I thought that archery sounded good . There cannot be much physical stuff involved with that . I was sorted , cushy number . We were told to meet at the Greenfields at 1800 . When we got there , all the kit was out and I thought this is great , shooting arrows in the sun on a lovely evening . All of a sudden Ozzy and Mick turned up on a lambretta or a vespa , something like that with a high back on it like the mods used to ride .
They lined us up and gave us perimeters that we were not allowed to stray outside of . For the next hour Mick chased us around the fields on the vespa with Ozzy on the back in the standing position shooting arrows at us . I was absolutely Bo&^%"ed . Great days , great memories . Not sure that they would get away with it these days but , it did us no harm . I changed my hobby the following week , I chose boxing with Derek Adams , another story for another day .
Hi Mac. Deltas had just got back from Cyprus that summer & it was hotter here than over there & we had to spend every afternoon at the swiming pool in tidworth LOL. & hide in the lockers when they came round the blocks looking for people to go out onto the plains to put the fires out
Like your write up Mac about Batterman and Robin, but i wonder what you and Johno were called when you were there in the the 80's.
Regards Pug "21E for Dog"
Carl
I dread to think !
Royal Welch that I served with in the Depot were ;
Ken Lloyd
Jacko Watkins
Mick Donnely
Yoko Davies (I always used to nick his bike when he was BOS)
Gary Blewitt
Lance Edmunds
Ned Huntley
Brian Dando
And there was a guy in the orderly room whose name escapes me .
As you can see there was a strong Royal Welch presence there at that time .
In the beginning , Major Tom Silverside was OC Training Company .
There are only two people in that list that I have seen since 1986 and they are Lance , about 1995 and Mick about 2001 .
Hi there, 2 Royal Welch Guys in Bn HQ at that time were, Wayne Beddis, and Garry Homersley. Cheers Braz.
What an incredible thread , when I joined june 77 (Malaya 7) they sent me home for 4 weeks on full pay as they did`nt have enough recruits to start the platoon, the only rwf at crickhowell I remember was pete leese? as Pti. and one in hq I think homesley. will definately visit crick`in septemberafter the sigs reumion.
You won't believe what a shambles the Depot looks now 17. It's such a shame that such a nice place can be left in the state it is. Surely they could have made it a permanent Cadet Base, or failing a Military Establishment, a Borstal. As for Crickhowell, Beautiful as Ever, what a lovely place. Braz
Cwrt-y Gollen is in its last throws of life. The camp is slowly being demolished and has planning permission for 200 houses. Some of the quarters are still owned by the Army, these are in the Cul-de-sac near where the old NAAFI stood. Fond memories of C-y-G having been posted there twice.
I remember the lovely weekends we use to spend at C-Y-G, Going swiming round the back at the salmon leap & messing around on the rope swing on the river. Happy Days :smile:
If you served at the Depot you must surely have had a drink or two in the following ;
The Bear Hotel with the mad old woman who was the landlady , her name escapes me , but there was one of those metal bar things that you had to put 2p in and get across the wire . I was in there one night with Monkey Lee and a guy called John Bees (Buzz) Both RWF . I think he (Buzz) was from Treorchy . She was having trouble with crows up the chimmney and she actually fired a shotgun up the chimmney to clear them . It was an amazing sight , we all s%+t ourselves but the locals , covered in soot just carried on drinking and chatting !
The Chevron nightclub in Abergavenny , went down them stairs quite a few times , sometimes on my own , others times with unrequired assistance .
The Manor Hotel discos , now that was a place that hated squaddies .
Got any good stories about these places lads ?
Remember drinking in the Vine tree in Abergevenny with the mother & daughter behind the bar LOL :winker:
1957 Left London and signed on same day as Larry Bohana, except he went on I believe to become RSM and then got a commission. Went on a Water Purifying Coarse together because we where to young at the time for Active service. Good times
Aden 5 platoon at C O G. Roberts 83, Thom 31 and Mike Crowley were the only RWF guys if I remember. Cpl Clements D and D was our section comander. Anyone else remember him? Ex SAS I think, used to take his whippets out for runs.
We had dreadful red platoon tracksuits, those awful army raincoats, suitcases and useless sleeping bags with feathers, no kip mat, no bivvy bag.
Its a shame that the camp is at the end of its life in a lot of ways its a waste of what was a great trainning camp . Can remember coming back off a long weekend and the welsh guareds were camped in tents on the green fields getting ready for deployment to the falklands. The drill square was covered with all types of ammo boxes and equipment choppers buzzying about the place had such a buz to it.................
I am going back to the 50,s.A lad from Manchester going into the R.W.F.National service too,this was extraordinary.Met at the station by Cpl,s Rider&Bowen,at RHQ Sgt Frank Killnon was trying to convince me to transfere to the Lancashire Fus,however this failed and I finished up doing 3yrs and dont regret a moment of it.I still wear with pride the blazer badge at every opportunity,cap badge and hackle as well.
Dave What about the one and only Terry Fox and Keith May Keith Sidphorpe and Al Lloyd 32 and ME to name a few moreQuote:
Originally Posted by davidrmac
I'd just love to somehow go back in time to when I joined the army - with this PC - plug it in to the socket where we did our ironing - and say "Look Sar'nt - I can email my mum .... and stuff - and look - here's your house on Google Earth!"
How he would have laughed!
In IJLB Oswestry, we, as recruits anyway, had to hand in, to the Pl Sgt, a letter a week home, and I think they recorded what you received back too.
When we went on leave our parents would receive a letter stating the amount of food and accommodation we would not be paying whilst on leave - so's they'd have a ballpark figure of what to charge us for the same, if they wanted to.
But I insisted on three squares a day, central heating, colour TV, the same 'bedspace', being woken up at 06:30 daily and a weekly sheet exchange.
We came to a compromise!
MY cry is not when I joined the RWF it meant eveyything to me but when my 2 sons that both which are in the Army x1 serving as air crew in the the AAC and the other as POM in the RE Both of them done ops tours. They tell me What was it like when you joined the Army dad was life as bad? What do I say, Life is 1 big lottery take your chances. God Bless to All
Hmmm. When i joined in Crickhowell i was going to join the RRW until Cpl `Maz` Maslin got hold of me. Look at me, he said, You too can wear a lovely `Feather` if you join my Regiment. Needless to say i was young and attracted to anything `Flighty` lol. Am ashamed to say that i`d never heard of the Royal Welch but looking back i am honoured to have served in the best Regiment in the British Army. We did PT in those `lovely` black daps then but i`m sure we never did any other kind of training in em, thank the lord. Don`t the guys get a pair of Reeboks or some other training shoes nowadays? Had great fun doing fire picket drills there too..."Water on...Water off...Knock off make up" I`m sure the Firefighters in the Station at rear of my house use the same or similar commands even today lol.
There was a number of us who joined this Platoon from the Juniors Coy. Cpl Bell D&D was another, Sgt Fenwick Glosters, Norrington-Davies Plt Comd RRW, but was changed with another RRW Lt Margeson (spelling iffy)Quote:
Originally Posted by griff029
Yes, the Vine tree in Abergavenny was a favourite haunt it was also where the nco Instructors visited to offer us sprogs the privllege to buy them a pint and share our fags, or else, in them days money was scarce, can you imagine that happening now, a call to Mummy or Daddy and they would be Court Martial'd. Another haunt was the weekly dance at the Town hall, I remember the long walks back to camp, about 5 miles if I remember right, great days.
Yes the old camp is in a sorry state, but there are parts of it still being used. Behind the married quarters on the old mt garage site TAVRA have built a new headquarters training centre for Gwent-Powys acf. At the top end of C-Y-G the greenfield camp is the Cadet Centre for Adventure Training. [CCAT] with accomadation, Both centres are also used by the Regs,. and TA.Quote:
Originally Posted by Braz
Roy
Didn't Dinger Bell replace a Cpl Lewis from RWF??. Remember Fenwick. If I recall he got an almighty chewing for posing about with a 9mm when the rest of us were carrying largepacks. Can't remember who he replaced?? Remember tabbing across Sennybridge on the final exercise in the famously hot summer of '76??Quote:
Originally Posted by Dai72
Lovely days.(???????)