National Service part 2

We had to polish up our uniforms ready for a special parade on the Sunday when families were invited to come.  The parade went through with the band and flags were flying for the guests. We then had time to show the guests around.

At Glen Parva Barracks (I'm far right on the back row)

Over the following days and weeks we carried on with work and training as normal and occasionally we’d got chance to go home for a while.  We carried on much the same until December.  We were told that when we came back from leave we’d be going to Cyprus but we were not allowed to tell anyone. 

We arrived back at the barracks on December 12^th to get our kit bags ready.  On the following morning we had to march through the village to catch the train and people were waving as we went past. It was a long journey involving several trains and we finally arrived at the docks at about 3 o’clock and had lunch on the station before walking up onto the Devonshire ship. We went below and found our hammocks and after we’d had food the ship was ready to leave about 10 o’clock. There were many other soldiers on board, some from the Air Force as well as soldiers from Wales and Scotland.

Postcard of the Devonshire

At night there was about forty of us struggling to get into our hammocks.  Several soldiers were told to go on deck to keep a look out and when they came back down at about 6am some of them started to be sick.  I just thought they must be weaklings because I felt fine but as soon as I jumped down from the hammock I felt a bit queasy. I got ready and made my way to get breakfast.  I went through one door, had my plate filled with food, suddenly started to feel sick and walked straight out the other door, threw my food in the bin and ran up to the deck. When I got there, there were hundreds of others spewing over the side!

All through the day you could see big strong men being held up looking as green as grass. Later things got better but there was still a lot of heaving going on!

The next day things were better as the sea had calmed down and we had a lot of jobs to do – mainly cleaning.  We were happy to call in at Gibraltar and see the monkeys jumping around the rocks. Even before we’d docked, the local men were jumping onto the ship asking us for money and anything else. Then, when we disembarked, we were greeted by men opening their overcoats and offering to sell us all kinds of things like watches and bangles etc. I didn’t buy anything from them but I did go into a shop and bought Diane a musical compact.  I wasn’t sure that it would reach her but she did get it in time for Christmas.

After this the ship then set sail again for Kyrenia, north Cyprus.  The ship couldn’t get close to the island so several large boats took us in. When we saw the mountains and trees we all thought the Cypriots were hiding and watching us and when we were piled into the lorries lots of the soldiers had their rifles at the ready. We had quite a journey to Famagusta on the south of the island.

When we arrived the Sergeant got us all into line and warned us to be careful as one of our soldiers had shot himself – luckily, it was only his toe but be careful! We were told that the corporal would allocate our tents for the next fortnight while we underwent further training.

We were only 2 days in and it was Christmas Day. We were surprised to see the soldiers running around in fancy clothes and a captain in the army was running about in a jeep and three others were running about having fun dodging in and out with the soldiers. Later we had a special Christmas dinner.

I only spent a few days in the tent because they came along asking for Soldier Peter Sharpe and I was told to pack my bags and report to the Bandmaster.