Old Baldie Rides Again: The Story of a Lone Explorer

By Ted Edwards

A Series of adventures somehow fitted into a single lifetime from childhood and the struggle between myth and reality through conscription, The Army Air Corps, in Germany, the Berlin wall, the Nijmegen marches, back packing, a climbing accident, the coalmine, the steelworks, incarceration in a Spanish jail, Strangeways, Israel two years after the Six Day War, strafed, caught in crossfire near Jericho, held up at knifepoint in Istanbul, college, hang gliding, learn about camels, mugged in Morocco, make a film crossing the Saharan Empty Quarter, first solo crossing of Iceland, recreating Stanleys journey to find Livingstone, a leopard, a man-eating lion, trained to become an astronaut but no spaceflight with N.A.S.A. ,nearly got spaceflight with Russians, a four foot rabbit, an alligator, Tenerife, coast to coast over volcano, stroke and epilepsy, wheelchair? No chance, returned to Tenerife, the Cabbage in a wheelchair climbed the volcano. Along the way Ted has been a successful folk singer and songwriter and has published the accounts of his major expeditions, a novel based in the Middle East and poetry books.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Sep 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781490779782

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Copyright 2017 Ted Edwards.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-7977-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-7976-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-7978-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016921216

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Contents

Synopsis

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Appendix A1

Appendix A2

Appendix A3

Appendix A4

Appendix A5

Appendix A6

Appendix A7

Appendix B

Synopsis

Synopsis.jpg

The Story of a Lone Explorer

By Ted Edwards

1. THE BOGIE-SAM, GOD AND OLD BALDIE

Childhood and the struggle between myth and reality.

2. ARMY MANOEUVRES

The Army Air Corps in Germany, the Berlin Wall and the Nijmegen Marches.

3. TURKEY, A BROKEN BACK AND TWO JAILS

Back packing, a climbing accident, the coalmine, the steelworks, Folk Music, incarceration in a Spanish jail for extortion purposes, and Strangeways.

4. THE WRONG WAR

Israel two years after the Six Day War. Strafed by Israeli ‘plane. Caught in crossfire near Jericho. Held up with two flick knives by a drunken hotelier in Istanbul.

5. ULSTER, EDUCATION AND LUFF-DIVING

Two trips to Ulster for gigs. Qualified B.Ed. (Hons). Early days of hang gliding.

6. SPACE AND TIMBUKTU

Decide to be an astronaut. All astronauts are achievers. What have I got to show? If I can cross Empty Quarter of Sahara single-handedly, I will have achieved. Failed!

7. TUNISIA AND A MOROCCAN MUGGING

Learn about camels in Tunisia. Mugged in Morocco. Failed again!

8. ALISTAIR, TRAD AND PEGGY

Backing by BBC to make a film of crossing with Alistair Macdonald. Bought two camels, Trad and Peggy, in Timbuktu and take them to the start.

9. SAHARAN EMPTY QUARTER

Alone with two camels and 350 miles to go, a doddle.

10. THE DRAGON

Fall from Peggy breaks four ribs. Lose some water. Nearly die. Success!

11. ICELAND AND THE LAVA DESERT

First solo crossing of Iceland. The biggest lava desert in the world.

12. DESERT, GLACIER AND VOLCANO

Black sand desert, my first glacier and an active volcano.

13. STANLEY, ERIK AND TANZANIA

Recreating Stanley’s journey to find Livingstone. A cowboy gun called Erik. The leopard and the man-eating lion.

14. NASA, A BUNNY AND AN ALLIGATOR

Astronaut training. Refused flight by NASA. Encountered a four foot rabbit and attacked by alligator.

15. THE DAN DARE PROJECT

Get flight with Russians to Mir. Gazumped by JUNO.

16. A YEAR AWAY

Training for Teide in Tenerife. Coast to coast over volcano in 24 hrs. The stroke and epilepsy. Cabbage in wheelchair? No chance. Taught myself to think, talk, walk, use a word processor and, against opposition, returned to flat on fourth floor, with no lift.

17. DUNCAN, THE NORTH CAPE AND RUSSIA

Through Europe, Scandinavia and Russia by Land Rover with Duncan.

18. ANOTHER VOLCANO

Return to Tenerife. The Cabbage in a wheelchair climbed the volcano. Old Baldie and a chip-pan fire at home. ‘A stroke is not a pause on the way to the graveyard.’

Chapter One

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Old Baldie, sometimes known as The Grim Reaper, The Banshee or The Angel of Death, has been my constant companion as I wander the globe. Through the years he almost, but not quite, has the aspect of a friend. The joker in the pack, he turns up unexpectedly and, at present, he’s always returned alone. I’m almost convinced that he’s a figment of an overactive imagination, but there are times when I’m not so sure. In any case, who am I to deprive him of what is rightfully his.

I’m sixty odd and maybe it’s time I put some things down on paper. So many memories, from severely good to diabolically bad, pass through what’s left of my brain. On the more physical side I was a soldier, explorer, pilot, coal miner, steel-man and potential cosmonaut, and my artistic abilities led me to author, filmmaker, songwriter, singer, poet, musician, cartoonist and teacher. In some of these I reached the peaks but in others succumbed to the troughs of life. But I did my best, which is all that can be asked of anyone.

This is the way it was.

I stood beneath the kitchen table, on the oilcloth, gazing up at the drawer and trying to figure out how it worked. The puzzle was due for some pondering, so I sat down and pondered. Maybe if I tugged the handle, as I’d seen others do, that would get some results? Crawling to the coconut matting, in full view, I stood up, grasped the handle, and pulled. My world was filled with falling knives, forks, spoons and concerned relatives. Nanan was concerned with my welfare as she gathered me up, Mam and Aunty Betty were concerned with the cutlery and Granddad was concerned with the loss of sleep as he looked around his chair. The cat was concerned with safety and cowered under the dresser.

We lived in a one down, two up, terraced house. Granddad paid rent to the Co-op next door, who in a fit of expansion had annexed our front room. We weren’t poor, provided the adults were in work, but we weren’t rich either. Granddad was a railway porter, Mam and Aunty Betty were on munitions and Nanan looked after the house. World War 2 had just started so I signed on as a domestic baby to give my father, who I rarely saw, something to fight for.

My early memories are peppered with air-raid sirens at the sound of which I was drilled to crouch in a cupboard, or, as I grew in stature, under the great, solid and drawered kitchen table, proof against all the Luftwaffe could throw against a defiant Castle Hill Road. Nanan, meanwhile, would go down the yard for a bucket of coal, determined that the might of the Fatherland should not impinge on her life one iota more than was absolutely essential.

When I got too big for a pram I was bought a Tan sad which was an early version of a stroller. I wouldn’t ride in it, preferring to push the thing wherever we went. This was a good indicator of my future career.

In summer I made tar babies with tar borrowed from the sparse travelled road, and learned that manure straight from the horse was hot; and I made aeroplanes out of cloths pegs

My Auntie Doris and Uncle Tommy lived in Marton, near Blackpool. They had no children and we visited them often for an extended stay. Sometimes I was left to give Mam a break. Uncle Tommy made real aeroplanes and Aunty Doris supervised my crab collecting from the North Shore.

One day, when I was two, Mam and Aunty Doris took me to see Mrs. Hall, a medium of great renown. The stairs were bare of carpet and the meeting was held in a room with rickety cane-backed chairs facing the sage. Mrs. Hall was holding forth when we entered. She stopped and looked at me in an imperious manner.

I must go to the little boy, she said. The assembly swung round, staring at me. She closed her eyes and uttered in sepulchral tones, He will surprise the world. That was all I can remember of this gathering. Speculation was rife. Would it be a pleasant surprise, or not? Would I win the Nobel Prize or become a mass murder. Mrs. Hall had said it, so it was true. I filed it away for future reference.

About this time we were in New Brighton on a cold and rainy day. We dodged into a full café and, after the meal was finished, (and I don’t know why,) I stood up on a chair and gave a faultless falsetto rendition of ‘Don’t Fence Me In," in a voice that carried to every corner of the café. People stopped speaking and eating, and after I’d finished my performance the applause was deafening. Someone produced a cap. The pennies, halfpennies and farthings filled it. I made seven shillings and six pence, which was a good morning’s pay for a labourer. My pockets bulging I filed that away too.

Marton was about three miles from the Pleasure Beach at Blackpool, by a route I knew well from several bus trips. On a tar-bursting morning when I was four I inveigled a young lady of barely three to accompany me there. My first expedition, without the approval of anyone, started well. We gathered some discarded cinema tickets to hand to the guardians of the rides. I knew that was the procedure, and tickets were tickets.

We managed a few rides while they were looking for our guardians, and then made our way in the direction of the tower where I promised lions. At some stage she started blubbing, which brought several sympathetic ladies and a policewoman who ascertained that we were lost. I took exception to this. I knew exactly where we were. My protestations about lions fell on deaf ears as we were abducted and taken to the police station where, several hours later, we were collected. This experience had far reaching effects. Henceforth I tended to travel alone.

I was taken to see the great sage known as The Teacher, who, I’d been led to believe, was the repository of all knowledge. I was not impressed. She didn’t know my name, my address or who my mother was. If she lacked this basic information, what chance was there that she would open for me the great portals of wisdom? Ever after I would take the word of adults, and particularly educators, with varying quantities of salt.

Teachers spoke a different language known as English, which was somewhat different to my own. I’d heard it on the wireless and grew up bilingual, but now I had to concentrate to find out what they were on about.

At school I discovered prayers, which were a way of talking to an old man called God, who was like Father Christmas in reverse. He it was who frowned upon any kind of fun, especially on Sundays. I hated Sundays.

The day of victory in Europe was a day of parties, and of a bonfire. We six-year-olds had never seen a bonfire because of the blackout restrictions, and were thoroughly entranced as backyard gate after backyard gate was sacrificed to the pyre. Flags flew from clothes-props sticking out of bedroom windows. Now we all prepared to settle down to something called Peace, which seemed to me something of an anti-climax after a lifetime of war and hate.

Victory over Japan came and out stuck the clothes-props again. Owing to a shortage of backyard gates several outside toilet doors were utilised, which caused considerable embarrassment. The celebrations were subdued. They lacked the spontaneity of the ending of the German war, and there was much talk amongst adults of a bomb.

Some days after VJ Day Mam took me to the cinema. I’ve no recollection of any of the feature films, but the newsreel is indelibly printed on my mind. The camera was in a bomber and far below was a harbour with several warships anchored in the still waters a couple of miles offshore. There was a great flash of light momentarily blotting out all vision. When it cleared the harbour was a mass of smoke. A shock wave was very slowly creeping out across the water towards the ships, a distinct line of death inexorably and quietly approaching the sailors. I knew they were Japanese, but in that moment they became people. I willed those ships to turn away, to run from the death line, to live – to live!

The line, impersonally, crossed the ships and continued out to sea as a mushroom cloud rose above Hiroshima.

The newsreel ended and the lights came on. Where normally there would be the hum of conversation there were now whispers, as in a church. I’ll never forget those fearful whispers the day the Atomic Age cane to Hindley. That day was to colour my relationship with all other races and cultures for the rest of my life. I went into that cinema a child of nationalism, but I came out a dedicated internationalist.

At this time my mind was taken up with speculation about the Bogy-Sam. When in the dark, after you’d finished your business in the outside toilet and wiped your nether regions on squares of the Daily Mirror, when you flushed the cistern you had to race to the back door and slam it shut before it filled up again, otherwise the Bogy-Sam would get you! All the adults said it was true, but they’d said that Father Christmas was true, and they’d lied about that! They didn’t seem bothered about the Bogy-Sam, but they universally said that it only happened to children, which made me suspicious.

On a cold evening, having flushed, I ran to the back door and opened it, but didn’t go inside. I waited for the advent of the Bogy-Sam, speculating on what form it would take. My hand holding the latch was sweating as I waited, and waited. Nothing happened, except Granddad called for me to, Put wood i’th ‘ole. So the grown-ups had lied to me again. I made it a point, weather permitting, to stroll casually from the Throne Room to the back door, not revealing my discovery of another falsehood.

My first recollection of actually challenging Old Baldie was in about my eighth year. It was the first night of the summer holidays so I was shipped of to Marton. At bedtime I was shown a broken electrical socket in my room. If I touched those bare contacts, it was announced with gravity, I would instantly die.

Seconds after being left alone I was out of bed and staring with great interest at this death-dealing device. Here was a colossal dilemma. Adults usually lied, but not always. There was only one way to find out. Maybe if I just touched the metal quickly I would be all right. Excitement tingled as the adrenaline surged and my mouth dried. Slowly my fingers came closer to the yellow gleam, and then a quick jab. Instantly I was shocked, but I lay on the carpet grinning. I was alive and the adults had lied again.

It was about a year later I met Old Baldie face to face.

THE PIT

Nanan died and thanks to some hiatus Mam and I moved out to live in rooms with Albert Bowery, a coal-miner, and his family. Amongst my contemporaries I was the runt, always stuck at the end of school photographs, and I had glasses so naturally I came in for more than my share of bullying. To combat this I became a comedian, with silly walks that would put Monty Python to shame. When this failed I made myself scarce. I had a good turn of speed, and when I was a hairs breadth of being caught I would roll myself into a ball so that my antagonist went sprawling in the dirt, enabling me to escape. Sometimes I didn’t, and the ensuing calamity I leave to your imagination.

One day three or four Neanderthals were chasing me as I neared the safety of the front door. I fumbled with the keys and just made it, slamming it shut. Albert was there as I panted.

What’s up lad, said Albert.

T’ big lads er chasing me, I replied, thinking that was sufficient explanation.

Oh, he said. A man of few words was Albert. Then he grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, opened the door and dumped me outside, shutting it after me. The big lads thought it was their birthday as they advanced. I knew I was in for a licking, but a transformation was taking place in my soul worthy of a Captain Marvel shazam.

I fought like a ferret, a dog, a tiger. Neither size nor number of my opponents fazed me as I got stuck in. Of course I was beaten to a pulp, but no one left the field without a black eye, a barked shin or a bloody mouth. It was years later when I appreciated the wisdom of Albert. No more running from a fight. I stood up to my foe. No matter what the outcome, a certain amount of respect was earned and I never fought that adversary again. In fact, some of them became friends.

Almost all my life seemed to be taken up by school at this time. My opinion that adults habitually lied inevitably showed itself in my schoolwork. It was the cause of great consternation to all therefore when, at the end of the list of names of those having passed the eleven-plus exam, my headmaster orated, … and, strange though it may seem, Edwards! I entered the portals of Hindley and Abram Grammar School. This was not a happy association, made somewhat unhappier by the constant application of the cane. My ideas and those of my tormentors differed at a basic level over what constituted education. Mathematics was to me an arcane subject, and why teachers insisted that I, in the company of others, should chase over a freezing field in order to get a ball between two poles, was beyond my ken.

Two things saved me from cultural oblivion, the first of which was the ability to play a harmonica. Some years sooner I’d acquired a mouth organ and managed to knock a tune out of it. I cajoled my dad into buying me a Hohner harmonica, the one that Larry Adler, Ronald Chesney et al used to play, which cost him a weeks wages. It was fully chromatic, with a button for sharps and flats. Very soon I mastered it. People said it was a gift. If it were so, how come I had to practice day and night? People asked me to play in school concerts, parish fetes and at cinema Saturday afternoon shows. As far as I was concerned there was Larry Adler, and there was me! But recognition is far from obscure Wiganers. After all, George Formby, who lived half a mile from me, had a famous father.

The other thing was an ability to draw cartoons. Not little doodles on pieces of scrap, but works of art done on expensive cartridge paper. I’d learned my trade by collecting cartoons from the papers and seeing how the professionals did it. My mentor, both in art and humour, was Giles. Each year Aunty Doris bought me a Giles book and I studied it academically; how he drew children and adults, and the subtle differences between, like size of head, or when to indicate movement, and how. Many pots of midnight oil were expended and many a time Mam got up at five for the morning shift at the mill to see me still at it.

It was at the age of twelve or so that I met the first adult, who, I felt, actually knew what he was talking about, and what was more, spoke about things that interested me. Ron Brown was a scoutmaster and ex-commando who had fought the hordes of Nippon and, as a result, saw the futility of war. He was a hero. He knew about the woods, wild life, camping, tracking, climbing, survival, first aid, hiking and living.

Life took on a new meaning. I threw myself body and soul into Scout Movement. Every evening saw me at some scouty task. Weekends were for taking to the hills. My first rucksack was an old naval kitbag with mackintosh belts for straps. The majority of Fridays I would turn up at school with this stuffed with blankets, hitch to Wales all night, share somebody’s rope all Saturday and Sunday, hitch back all night and sleep through every class on Monday. This was the cause of much worry to my maternal parent.

Chapter Two

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Army Manoeuvres

23597468 was my number and Gunner was my rank. There was a barrack room in Oswestry full of people. Soon there were enclaves of Jocks, Scousers, Brummies, Geordies, Cockneys and Wiganers each sending bilingual emissaries to the others. Our education began with the Queens English; after all, it was her army. We were there for a fortnight to be kitted out, assess our potential and be introduced to army life. It was much like scout life, except that every action took place strictly in unison and at the double. There we were taught to march, arms shoulder high at the front and waist high at the rear, and drill, and drill, and drill with hobnail stampings on the parade ground and no cow kicking. We learned to bottle up our feelings when being verbally beleaguered, nose-to-nose, by our inferiors and not to complain when boots that we could see our face in were described as filthy. There are legends about whitewashing coal; Sergeants Major wiping lockers with white-gloved hands searching for lately deposited dust and polishing refuse bins with needles so that they shone. They’re all true!

This is a rifle, said the bombardier, pointing to a short Lee-Enfield in his hand. It is not a gun. A gun has wheels on it. Throughout my army service, despite my rank of gunner, I never saw a serviceable gun.

In our barrack room was a Romany who was given the epithet Crystal. A mild and gigantic young man with his head permanently to one side, try as he might he couldn’t get it together. His webbing looked like a herd of buffalo had been through it, and his boots – oh dear – his boots. We gave him as much help as we could.

Came a six o’clock on a windy and rainy dawn when we were standing to attention by our beds. The bombardier, the Royal Artillery’s equivalent of a corporal but twice as loud, came in, made straight for Crystal who stood head and shoulders above him, and treated him thus.

"Webbing – filthy!"

He picked up his webbing with his stick of office and threw it through the open window.

"Spare boots – grimy!"

They went the way of the webbing.

Cap badge – looks like you’ve been peeling spuds with it!

The cap, complete with badge, sailed over the windowsill to land audibly in the mud. Crystal, with no belligerence and with his face deadpan, picked up the bombardier like a rag doll and deposited him through the window. Then he resumed his semblance of attention with his head to one side and awaited developments.

I never saw Crystal again.

We had an intelligence test and shortly after I was marched before an Officer Selection Board. The interview was short.

Ah, Edwads. What school did you gew tu?

’Ingley n’ Abram Grammer School, Sir.

"Ew. Whea’s thet?

Wiggin, Sir.

Ew. Ey see. Well thenk yu, Edwads. You may gew.

The instructors were amazed when, after a test in map reading, I got 100%. I explained that I’d been a fellow instructor for upwards of four years.

Posted to Kinmel Park outside Rhyl I commenced training as a signaller to learn radio and telephone operation. After a misdemeanour I was sent to run around the main square with full pack and rifle held high. My thoughts turned back to about four years before when a gunner was espied on this same square by a bunch of cat calling scouts on their way to camp. I was chief cat caller. What’s that about poetic justice?

We heard a tale about some Canadian soldiers in that same camp who, in 1946 and anxious to get home, revolted and a running battle took place with rifles. There are some Canadian graves in the St. Asaph Cathedral that testify to this.

After six months I was posted to RAF Wildenrath, Germany, on permanent secondment to the Army Air Corps. 23684387 Gunner Hill and I were dumped in an obscure railway station and approached by a high-ranking, gold braided and beribboned Gestapo officer. He turned out to be the stationmaster who pointed us to our transport.

The Army Air Corps was formed out of the remnants of the Glider Pilot Regiment, which were declared redundant in 1957. 12th Independent Liaison Flight was newly minted from an RAF army liaison flight and consisted of personnel from all three services, numbering about thirty in all from the boss to the lowliest gunner, me. Our principal peacetime job was to be an airborne taxi service for high-ranking brass, but in wartime we were spotters for the guns of the Royal Artillery, the No.1 target for the enemy. We were given a light blue beret and a handsome eagle badge set in a laurel wreath.

The boss, Major Nick Nichols, was small in stature. He was the last member of the Glider Pilot Regiment and wore its eagle badge with pride. 12th Flight was Nick’s private army.

Quickly I was trained to drive and passed my test the first time. I was bitten by the flying bug. My pilots, not wishing to have a non-piloting passenger on board in a war situation, taught us unofficially to fly as an act of self-preservation. On my first flying lesson I was shown to an Auster 6, the four-seater spotter plane I grew to cherish. Apart from a fifteen-minute pleasure spin in Blackpool as a child, which I enjoyed immensely, this was my first real flight and no mention of a flying lesson was forthcoming. As far as I was concerned it was just a straightforward flight to Detmold 140 miles to the northeast.

Strapped into my seat I heard the pilot yell; Contact! and someone outside swung the propeller. The engine started and at that moment I knew what the earphones were for as the cockpit filled with ear-splitting sound. Chocks were away and, as we took off, I watched the landscape fall away at an odd angle. Climbing to nine thousand feet we levelled off and, mercifully, the engine noise became a steady drone.

The Rhine shimmered like a magic thing as the aircraft caught the reflected rays of the Sun. Roads were written on the green of the fields and a seemingly miniature railway, impossibly small, ran like an automaton trailing its smoke under the bridges.

Do you know what to do! yelled the pilot through the intercom.

What! screamed I, mystified?

Can you fly a plane! shrieked my mentor.

I’ve read a book!

You have control! he bawled. Thus saying he removed his hand from the joystick and his feet from the pedals. It was now incumbent on me to take charge so, fighting down the extremes of panic, I placed the soles of my feet where they should go and gripped the joystick with both hands like grim death. Immediately the aircraft went into a steep dive.

Let go of the stick! he screamed in a casual manner. This was diametrically opposed to what a lifetime of cinema flying had taught me, but I knew that my pilot was very much in love with life, so I obliged. The plane recovered from the dive and continued straight and level.

The aircraft will fly itself if you give it a chance. Just touch the stick with the thumb and two fingers and only correct when necessary. Treat it like your dick on the paradise stroke

That’s when I found out why they called it a joystick. With expert guidance I tried a few turns, made inevitable mistakes and, being acquainted with maps, flew us to Detmold, only relinquishing control in order to land. I climbed down from that plane like a veteran of the Battle of Britain, my ego still up in the clouds.

In the ensuing three years I learn to fly Auster 6s, 7s and 9s, Chipmunks and Beavers with some degree of success, though owing to the clandestine nature of my tuition I never received recognition in the form of a pilot’s license.

At the age of nineteen my sex drive was at its height. Being incarcerated in a camp were there were three thousand over-sexed males and a dozen over-worked NAAFI girls, in the absence of parental guidance there seemed nothing else to do, in our leisure moments, than get irresponsibly drunk.

The Amstelonions were an elite group of imbibers who drank Amstel beer in vast quantities and stacked the night’s consumption of empty bottles in the windowsill of the NAAFI. We were from different units and services and, apart from the regulation haircuts; we were off duty beatniks to a man. Plimsolls with no socks were the order of the day and only open necked sweaters with no shirts were permitted. Thus, like young people the world over, we were identically different.

We waxed philosophical and discussed things of moment till about the fourth bottle. Then someone, usually me, started to sing and the rest joined in. Such classics as Maggie May, Abdul Abulbul Amir and Hey, Jig-a-Jig passed our tonsils in the traditional way of men without women, while Slim Dusty warbled A PUB WITH NO BEER on the British Forces Network.

Tobacco was a thing I’d never thought about since, at an early age, Grandad gave me a few puffs of his black twist in order to cure me of smoking forever. After spending some time retching in the toilet it gave me revulsion of the stuff for years. But now, as a guardian of Britain’s shores, I was granted an allowance of fags at a shilling for twenty as a part of my pay, and, thanks to peer pressure, took up the hobby.

In Holland there’s a town called Nijmegen were an annual event of enormous proportions takes place. Upwards of 16,000 masochists, military and civilian, from most parts of the globe, assemble in order to spend four days walking. The military walk thirty-one miles (50 km.) per day and the civilians, who are usually fitter, walk thirty-five miles (53 km.). The rewards are great camaraderie, a medal and an enormous feeling of achievement. I entered this event as a civilian, but anything that led to the greater glory of 12th Flight was fine by my Glorious Leader. I received time off for training and ate steak.

That walk was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Thirty-five miles in a day on hard roads is pretty punishing. To have to get up for a further three days at four-thirty a.m., stiff as a board and hurting in places I’d forgotten about, borders on self-immolation. But I was as fit as a butcher’s dog and one day led the entire field for most of the way to be pipped at the post by a Dutchman. The whole thing was such a magnificent event of international togetherness and friendly rivalry that I was to do it on seven consecutive occasions, and one after a twenty-five year lay-off to prove I could still do it.

Nijmegen was where I learned ultimately about pain, and the conquering of it. It was a crucible in which base metal was turned to gold. I learned to ignore pain and to disassociate myself entirely from it. When I stopped, even for a few seconds, the pain on starting again was incredible. There were several tricks of the trade. One was to stamp your feet with all your might onto the hard road, blisters and all, shouting like a karate expert breaking a paving stone. Another was to run a short distance to unlock the leg muscles. These were designed to fill the brain with such a surge of pain that it couldn’t handle it and gave up receiving the pain signals. It worked! Another method, no less drastic, was to call in at every bar on the way. This had marvellous anaesthetic effects, but tended to slow the pace somewhat.

As a National Serviceman I received half the pay of a regular soldier, which wasn’t much. I was fed and watered, and very little else. Taking it all into consideration I figured I may as well sign up for a three year stint. So I took the Queen’s shilling, which took some finding as we were paid in DM, was shown as portrait of the Queen and became a mercenary, one of the ragbag of people from every nation willing to fight for Her Majesty. The world looked brighter with a regular’s pay and I even purchased a car, a left-hand drive Vauxhall Wyvern of indiscriminate age, which moved some of the time.

I bought a motorbike just before New Year, a twelve year old, two-stroke, 197cc NSU. Having never driven a motorbike in my life I loaded it up, received instruction on its use and rode it to Hindley. It rained the whole of the two-day trip. On reaching England there was trouble with corners and traffic islands, but when I got off in Hindley, stiff and sore, I could ride a bike.

Back in Germany I acquired many skills such as Morse telegraphy, how to kill my fellow man by numerous gyrations of the hand and how to jump out of serviceable aircraft. Let me explain.

In my head I had formulated a sophisticated plan as to how to fight with light aircraft. Now Austers, being made mostly of canvas, but with a miniscule engine, where largely invisible to radar. Therefore if an Auster, at night, were to rise to nine thousand feet (3,000 metres), switch off the engine, glide over the enemy’s territory, drop a two-man team by parachute at six thousand feet (2,000 metres) and hightail it to safe territory, the pilot would still have sufficient height to switch on and fly to glory. I figured that much more damage could be done with a set of spanners and a screw-driver than could ever be done with a Stirling sub-machine gun.

I mentioned my master plan to Nick. He mulled it over, then said, Leave it with me.

I heard nothing for two months, then he summoned me to his office. He said he liked the basic plan and called for volunteers to try it out. The first one was me. We were issued with Dennison smocks and Irvin parachutes then shown to an Auster 9 AOP, the latest Auster capable of being switched on in mid-air. The Auster 6 had to be prop-swung on the ground a-la WWI.

The doors had to be dispensed with and we sat on our ‘chutes, me on the left hand side of the pilot and the other volunteer facing backwards in the Air Observation Post’s position. Then we were off, the wind whipping our clothing, the engine screaming and thoughts of a renegade Indian in mind.

The Irvin ‘chute, the one in plentiful supply in any airfield, was a self-release ‘chute as any static line release method would have dragged the aircraft out of the sky.

At six thousand feet the pilot indicated the altimeter. To say I was ready and willing at that moment was to wildly exaggerate my feelings, but I undid my flying harness and leaned to the left as I’d been told to do. I left the aircraft behind, pulled the rip-cord and checked the canopy. All fear departed. Maybe if I hadn’t had pilot experience things would have been different, but I trusted the air and what it would do. There was time to drink in the sights as I swung to Earth, even waving to my fellow volunteer who had made it from the back seat and now floated above me. The ground was rapidly approaching as I bent my legs and made contact. It was a fantastic experience and, after a brief debriefing, I did it again, this time from the back seat. In a month we did eight drops, which qualified us to wear the parachute wings. We did the subsequent drops by night with no problems. We even did some embryonic sky-diving, though we called it ‘Freefall Parachuting’.

Try as he might Major Nichols could not get the War Office to take any notice of my plan, so it gathered dust until he went of to pastures new. Such is the way of bureaucracy.

We got new radios and the brackets to fix them wouldn’t work in an aircraft, designed as they were for Champs and tanks. I went to the workshop and gave the brackets a half turn with a pair of pliers to make them work. This was an innovation, therefore a top-secret operation necessitating the signing of the Official Secrets Act.

The end of 1960 approached and all the National Servicemen departed for dear old Blighty, leaving me behind to reap the benefits of another two years service. The intellect of the British forces dropped dramatically. I took to going into Wildenrath village and mixing with the locals, thus increasing my knowledge of the German language. The older Germans, to a man, were active in resistance to Hitler, as the grass was undoubtedly red and squirrels were green. Still, conversation was conversation.

Terry Graham and I had a good little earner. I drew tattoos while Terry made them indelible with Indian ink and two needles tied to a matchstick. Our favourite was a heart with the scroll left blank so the tattooed could write the current girls name in biro. One night a giant Glaswegian approached us demanding a crucifix on his chest. As we were drunk at the time we tried to persuade him to come back tomorrow, but he would have none of it. So I drew a crucifix, slightly off centre. I made to rub it out, but he insisted, with all of his bulk, that it would do. Terry commenced to needle him and got half way through the job when the colossus decided he’d had enough pain for the day. He departed and the next thing we heard about him was that he’d got into a fight with the RAF Station Police, the Snowdrops on account of their white caps, and was shipped of to gaol. Now when I’m in Glasgow I have this vision still of a titanic individual tapping me on the shoulder and demanding half his money back, or worse.

As the Cold War hotted up the Yanks came, with their bombs. They were housed in British Vulcan bombers and, as a back up, Canberras. A demonstration of thousands was organised outside the gates by the local CND, which roughly half the camp and I attended, in civvies with hoods and masks to combat recognition by the cameras of the Snowdrops. It didn’t feature in the British press.

We always had a bolthole over or under the fence, avoiding the gate, for late arrivals at the camp from the pub. Every one in camp knew it, and the guards knew it. Short of making it a full-blown prison, I don’t know how such practices can be avoided. Of course, if a bigwig were to inspect the security of the camp, he wouldn’t be shown the bolthole.

I remember a tale of when a General from NATO was inspecting a bomb-carrying Vulcan. There was a ring painted on the apron beyond which unauthorised personnel were not to pass, and two SPs armed with sten-guns to back it up. The wind caught the bigwig’s cap and blew it into the ring. He went to pick it up, but the two guards, weapons at the ready, stopped him in his tracks and the station commander had to be sent for to release him. This was bullshit that got smiles for the security, but the boltholes were still there, and as far as I know, are there still.

Having a few days leave a friend and I took a trip into Belgium, ending up in the city of Spa. Now Spa, unbeknownst to us, was were the Belgian Grand Prix for motorbikes was held, and this was the very weekend. The world champion in this sport was one John Surtees, a Brit, and he was here to bid for the title on the following day. We thought we would like to see it, so presented ourselves at the turnstile, arguing indignantly that our NATO border pass entitled us to enter the venue. It worked, and we got a superb view of the pits.

I thought that it would be good to get photo’s of ourselves on John Surtees’ bike, so we waved our passes nonchalantly at the officials and walked into the pits. John was there, tinkering with his 500cc M. V. Agusta, when we strolled by and asked him if he would mind.

Help yourself, said the great man, so we did. That’s how I’ve got a photo of me on the bike he won the Belgian Grand Prix on the day after, with himself, a bit embarrassed, on the pillion. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Came the day that I, a humble gunner in the army, flew an RAF Canberra bomber. I’d heard of a joy-riding scheme whereby RAF personnel could have a flight in one of the Canberras after going through decompression chamber and ejection seat training. I could see no reason why a soldier shouldn’t have the same privilege, so I applied. Miraculously I was accepted, went through the training and on a fine summers day approached a Canberra with my helmet on. The ‘H’ bomb, which took most of the bomb bay space, was permanently in place though, I assumed, not armed. I was in the bomb aimer’s position, lying prone in the nose with my face against the Perspex in my own private world. There was some jargon from my earphones and we were off. The engines screamed as the bomber flashed down the runway at maybe three times the speed of my Austers, my nose seemingly dragging along the ground. The pilot said, Rotate, and we were off. We levelled off at about 15 thousand feet and the engine died to a high- pitched hum.

The aircraft was noticeably faster than anything I’d encountered before and I revelled in the speed. We