Looking back now it seems a scary thing to be doing because, as I have said, the Egyptians didn't exactly love us and once in a while they would fire the odd shot over the camp fence and the guard would then sound the alarm and every one would have to get up and go on standby
(The locals only did this to annoy us, and they were right)
But then I never worried about doing guard duty then and just regarded it as another job.
We had some Egyptian civilians working in the camp there was the char walla who used to make the tea and coffee in the recreation rooms and the dobie walla who ran an ironing business in the camp and was the first human steam iron I have ever seen
There was no electricity for him so he used a flat iron and an open fire heated up the iron and then took a mouthful of water and sprayed it through a gap in his front teeth and it was a very fine spray.
I flew home for demob in February 1955 just on my twenty-first birthday. And do you know what I cannot recall ever having a birthday party, not even for my sixteenth or my twenty-first
During my time in the army I had learnt a lot of good things, I had learnt how to look after myself, iron, sew on buttons, take a pride in my appearance, be self sufficient and most of all a pride in myself.
When you got issued with your uniform at the start you were given two pairs of boots with toe caps that were all pimply and dull and you had to spend weeks just polishing the toe caps so that they shone like a mirror.
You used to bang the toes with a spoon to flatten the pimples and then iron them with a hot table spoon and spit and polish for hours on end. When all of us raw recruits assembled on the parade ground the first day at Blandford the sergeant major (who looked and sounded like the sergeant major in "It aint arf hot) said to us the following things
firstly he told us that he was like a piece of rope around our necks "you pull with me" he said "and we will get along fine but you pull against me and I'll bloody well strangle you all"
He then said you are now wearing the Queens uniform so every time you go out in it you will walk with pride, throw your chest out and be proud of your uniform and of yourself and walk tall.
This has paid off because I always walk proudly and look people straight in their eyes and if I happen to hear a band playing marching music I swing my arms and march off down the street (silly as a two bob watch).
I feel very despondent when I see the young people of today shuffling along the road, eyes looking down on the ground and a bent back
They seem to have no pride in themselves and no get up and go attitude. The thing is you cannot buy pride, it has to be instilled in ones mind by ones own ambition.