Brasso, Blanco and Bull by Tony Thorne

Author:Tony Thorne
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780334608
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

13

IN POSITION

We passed out from Eaton Hall on 17 May 1957. The sense of achievement was colossal. I learned the week before that I had been accepted to serve as a second lieutenant with the East Surrey Regiment.

The only possible blemish on my excursion to Heaven was that the time had come to say goodbye to some colleagues with whom I had become closer than any group of people before or since. The key to forming real friendship is exposure to a common enemy. In a way, throughout our training, the Army had been that enemy and, in our common fear of the unknown and unexpected, we had all come to a form of intimacy that was unique. The only place I can imagine where greater friendships might be formed would be somewhere like Wormwood Scrubs.

Jumbo Fuller and old Grandad Farrar joined the Queen’s Regiment, the West Surreys. It was an irony that, towards the very end of our service, plans would be afoot to merge the Queen’s Regiment and the East Surrey Regiment. In fact we never did rejoin our old mates in the Queen’s, because an emergency in the Middle East saw the Surreys off into action. The whole merger had to be delayed until just after we were demobbed. But I would meet up with Jumbo again when he shot down Jesus Lane, Cambridge, on a rusty old bike.

‘What Ho, Captain!’ he yelled across the street at me, ‘I’m looking for my tutor in a virgin’s asshole.’

It turned out that his tutor kept rooms in ‘The Maid’s Causeway’, which was one of the ancient streets running close to Jesus Lane.

Old Grandad went back to the two loves of his life and prospered with both. He finally won the fourth round of his long-running bout with the examiners from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and he married Shirley who was the great love of his life.

Bertie Bois had successfully defied the system. He must have been the only person to have been chucked out of Sandhurst and then earn a commission as a national serviceman. He stayed with the Buffs.

Dear Tony Swinson, Christian and upright, but still with a beret that looked like a cowpat, joined the Yorks and Lancs Regiment, where he could, at last, chuck away his beret and doff the peaked cap of an Officer.

Dear old Webby was in the squad behind us so he had to soldier on for a while before he, too, passed out along with David Ford who was to join the East Surrey Regiment. I mention David here because he played a continuing part in this dramatic story, while the others went their separate ways. John Webb went off to Nigeria with the West African Rifles where a fellow-Officer was Jack Gowan who played such a prominent part in that country’s history during and after the Biafran war. But Webby survived to share a room with me at Jesus College, Cambridge.

Butch Mackenzie Hill joined the Marines where his flying

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.