KEN ROBERTS

KEN ROBERTS' ARMY SERVICE part 2

Arriving at Suez, we disembarked into an R.A.S.C. landing craft and were landed on the crowded quayside. We were then taken to the local railway station by R.A.S.C. road transport. Of the group of five vehicle mechanics who did their training at Farnborough two of us - Bob Oldridge and myself - remained together and travelled by Egyptian State Railway to Fayid, on the western shore of the Great Bitter Lake. On arrival we were collected by an R.A.S.C. driver in a Humber 4 x 4 field car and taken to the guardroom of 591 GHQ (Staff Car ) Company. The guardroom consisted of a large tent surrounded by whitewashed jerricans. The corporal on duty there pointed us in the general direction of the Workshops Platoon area and said he couldn't spare anybody to show us the way.

We managed to find a tent (No 75) in the Workshops Platoon line which had a couple of empty bedspaces available but the sand floor was fitted with a coconut mat, wall-to-wall. We thought we must have stumbled into an NCO's tent by mistake, especially since the only occupant was a lance-corporal. But he introduced himself as Reg Miller, of Ipswich and made us welcome. He was a fitter/turner and spent most of his time as a fitter; he was called upon from time to time to exercise his skills with the various machines.

After showing us around the workshops and nearby buildings he pointed us towards the Quarter Masters Stores and invited us to go up there and obtain overalls - we could make a start the following day. By the time we got back it was early afternoon and he suggested that we go along with him to have a look (or a "shufti") at Fayid village; there was no need to obtain a pass or permission to leave the camp, we could just go. As long as we didn't try to leave camp alone there was no formality attached to it. "You're no longer in training", he said, and made us both feel like real soldiers after eleven months of learning to march, drill, shoot, drive and repair things. This was definitely going to be the life !

Reg took us to the open-air village alongside the main road leading to the Great Bitter Lake; looking back now, it was very similar to a car boot sale but without any cars. All the items for sale were laid out in the sand or on blankets which looked as if they had once belonged to the British Army. Here and there we found rickety tables set up. The one thing common to all the goods offered for sale was a complete absence of price tickets - all prices were negotiable and people serving in the British forces were offered special prices. So we were assured by the vendors, anyway !

We then made our way around the outside of the camp to the upmarket part of Fayid; here we found concrete buildings, some with doors, even. Whereas the outdoor shopkeepers sold mainly souvenirs and small items of jewellery destined to be sent back to the UK as gifts, this part of Fayid boasted photographic shops, made-to-measure clothing, barbers' shops, a miniature golf course, roller-skating rink and a cinema. The skating rink, which backed on to 591 Company's plot, kept us all awake until about midnight with its gramophone record (no, not a spelling mistake - I only ever remember them playing one record - "Wish You Were Here" - over and over again).

An early job the following day was to get the civilian upholsterer to take some length off the sleeves and legs of the ill-fitting overalls; he did a good modification which merited the five ackers (about one shilling) I paid him. Second job was to drive out on to the public roads and experience driving a right hand drive vehicle on the right hand side of the road in amongst Egyptian civilian traffic. I chose to use a Bedford 3 tonner, that being the model I was most used to driving before leaving the UK . Straightforward enough until I arrived at my first roundabout; a moment of indecision, change down to third, sigh of relief and proceed anti-clockwise.

My first operational work as a VM was to adjust the valve clearances on a Bedford 15 cwt which the electricians had been working on. More or less all my training had been carried out on Bedfords and all Bedfords - 15 cwt, 3-tonner and QL 4 x 4 3-tonner - all used the same engine as far as I recall, but with different gearboxes. Obviously this first job involved a drive down to the test route which took fifteen minutes or so, followed by a session of testing out the brakes, steering and suspension on the test track itself. Ah yes, and the tappets ! Adjusting the tappets was best carried out with the engine hot and ticking over slowly.

Reg Miller accompanied me on this first trip and the only formality involved was to buckle on "test plates" front and rear. A test plate consisted of a piece of sheet metal about nine inches by seven fitted with a leather buckle-strap. This was painted in the regimental colours of blue and yellow divided diagonally with a white horizontal band at the top bearing the legend "591 COY - ON TEST". This, as well as being a warning to other drivers that something dramatic might happen without notice, permitted the VM to drive to the test route without a work ticket. Which was very useful when a crate or two of beer was required for the evening. We were issued with typewritten permits a month at a time to dispense with the formality of a work ticket for each journey. I don't recall that the permit stipulated "no beer to be carried en route".

Going to the test route involved a circumnavigation of the camp and then a ten-minute drive to the test track itself, which consisted of the first half a mile or so of a tarmacked area which had previously been an RAF airstrip. The actual length of the useable tarmac depended on how much sand had recently encroached upon it and the time spent there was enough to carry out the testing and, in some cases, improving one's driving ability and technique. Some VMs saw it as a way of passing the time towards demob and could be seen dozing happily under the truck or in the back seat of the staff car; these were mostly the ones approaching the end of their National Service - they were fed up with Egypt.

Some rather strange driving exercises took place on the test track, particularly when two like-minded people arrived at the same time. There was a fore-runner of stock car racing, with two (or more) evenly matched three tonners competing around a course marked out with a mixture of jerricans and boxes, sometimes broom handles stuck vertically into the soft sand. I don't recall any real damage being suffered by any of the vehicles, just an occasional graze which could conveniently be painted over back at 591, which might cost a tin of fags or so.

An early form of cross country rallying required four- wheel drive wagons to be driven off the tarmac surface on to the soft sand ; the one which got the farthest - and returned to the tarmac - being the winner. The losers included those which needed towing out of the sand and the ones which had to be lifted by the recovery truck and then dragged out. The most memorable loser was the lad who tipped a Federal fire engine right over on to its side; he was disqualified anyway because the fire engine was a 4 x 2. Popular favourites for this competition were Humber 4 x 4 field cars which were heavier than the jeeps and generated more traction with their bigger wheels.

All these activities back in 1948/49 took place out of sight of those who would have objected because there was no official road to the test track.. It was a case of driving along the main road and turning right just before the C-in-C's Mess onto a gravel patch about two hundred and fifty yards long. This was followed by the half mile of tarmac. The only people who used the test track were 591 Coy Workshops staff - it was too far off the main road for anyone else to arrive there accidentally.

Although most of the sergeants and certainly those above that rank were Regular Army people, quite a few corporals were National Servicemen like ourselves (some achieved the dizzy height of corporal because they had been offered a carrot to "sign on" for five and seven years). Nobody offered me a carrot until three weeks before my demob was due to take place, by which time I could have gone home, had some disembarkation leave and then, if I wanted to, sign on with a much more lucrative arrangement in the REME.

There was plenty of leisure time at 591 Coy; very often the Officer in Charge of Workshops would get us on parade at about 1400 and tell us to knock off for the day. This would happen once or twice a week, and was a very civilised way of running a Workshops Platoon, in our opinion. We would clean up and stroll to the village, or to the lido or even to the NAAFI inside camp. After tea there was a wide choice of cinemas, the skating rink, the golf course ; three cinemas were within walking distance and they all screened different programmes.

Other cinemas involved a degree of travel, for which there were several options: Egyptian taxi, which was the very fastest mode of transport, albeit dangerous to life and limb. Can't say I ever lashed out on a taxi but I believe if a group of squaddies all shouted loud enough at the driver they would finally finish up at the right place and then beat the price down a bit. The Austin 6 x 4 recovery truck was ideal for taking a dozen or so of the lads to their selected places of entertainment. There was no great difficulty in arranging a work ticket for this nefarious purpose.

I don't believe I sat through more than three or four film shows in the twelve months or so which I spent in the Canal Zone. There were too many other, more enjoyable, activities to indulge in. Top of the list was football, played on the sand pitch adjacent to the cookhouse. The pitch was normally made ready for play by having great sheets of coconut matting dragged over it by a squad of civilians employed within the camp. The neat, parallel lines left by this operation would provide a fairly playable surface capable of supporting ninety minutes of football between the various platoon teams.

When a company game was due to be played there would be special attention by a Bedford 15 cwt water tanker and a diesel four ton roller. On the one occasion when an inter-command match took place this arrangement was repeated during the half-time interval - no expense spared ! I recall that a man by the name of Mel Charles took part in this match; he was the brother of John Charles, the legendary Welsh international player. My only claim to footballing fame was sinking a NAAFI pint in the company of Mel Charles !

So what else did we do to fill our leisure time? Apart from the activities already mentioned, most of the civilian attractions were either out of bounds or strongly discouraged by the Army authorities. Company Orders (Part One ) made it quite clear that any ailment arising from the discouraged pursuits would be regarded as having been self-inflicted and therefore the subject of a court-martial charge. Besides, most of the ladies involved lived in Ismailia, Port Said or Cairo - very expensive places, I'm told ! ! !

Largely, we made our own entertainments; reading and letter-writing were pleasant enough to perform at any time. I always tried to write home once or twice a week and my sister kept up a comprehensive stream of news from Plymouth, together with copies of the Western Evening Herald. National magazines would arrive from UK and would be passed around from hand to hand until unreadable. A lad in the next tent received a regular supply of an American magazine - "Saturday Evening Post" - with which I was quite familiar, having obtained plenty from the US Navy during the wartime days.

Another fellow always had a Wilson model lorry kit under construction and kept himself amused for hours. Adverts for Wilson lorry kits can probably still be found in old copies of modelling magazines of the late forties. Another very popular periodical was "Commercial Vehicle". Locally printed leaflets publicised the programmes available on "Forces Radio", although radio sets were few and far between among the tents. For important UK sports broadcasts there was always the MT Storeman's radio. All the many services' cinemas were well -advertised at the village and within tthe camp.

Most of us at some time would block up an ants' nest with matchsticks just to observe the ingenuity and strength of the occupants. Fayid ants measured about half an inch long and each was capable of carrying a complete matchstick unaided; sometimes, however, they worked in pairs with equally successful results. Any ant finding himself at the bottom of a cigarette tin sunk in the sand would somehow get in touch with a rescue team and they would either kick sand into the tin until he could climb out or pass matchsticks or other materials down to him. Fascinating creatures.

On one of the few occasions when I was caught for a twelve hour guard duty, the whole squad (including the guard commander) were ordered to parade again at 0930 the following day, behind the main workshops building where there was a 20 foot space between the wall and the barbed wire fence. As we assembled, some in working rig, some in football gear, others in their best battledress, the reason for our summons became quite clear. There was an Austin Utility propped up on bricks and blocks, minus all its wheels; even the spare had gone. It had obviously been pushed or driven some fifty yards from where it had been parked the previous evening and some scheming Egyptian now possessed an updated van or trailer. Somewhere. All this happened between nightfall and sunrise. While we were on guard ! Luckily, no further action was taken by the authorities.

The biggest (or at least , the longest) card game I ever took part in lasted seventy two hours over the Christmas leave period. It started at about midnight (or 2359 in Army terms) in Tent 75 - my tent - the one nearest the Workshops - and gradually moved up the line. Only two or three tents enjoyed the luxury of a table and even those did not have chairs so the game took place on a few square feet of plywood placed on a bed; when the owner of the bed had had enough brag for the day, the game shifted to another bed. When all four, five or six of the tent's occupants wanted to sleep, the whole game moved to a different tent.

After the Orderly Officer had done the rounds and retired to the Mess for the night, the game continued in the guard tent until it was time for the guard dismounting parade (0600 hrs). Then there would be organised upheaval for an hour or so whilst a couple of losers went to the cookhouse and prevailed on the staff to supply what would today be called a takeaway breakfast for the appropriate number of players. Over the three days and nights, the guard tent became the most popular venue for the card game; nowhere else could be found electric light, a table and chairs, unlimited cocoa and a steady supply of lads coming off their two-hour "stags" to join in the game.

A "stag" was the two-hour period which the sentry had to fill before being relieved by someone else ; the first stag - 1800 to 2000 hrs - was popular with most of the troops because there was still a bit of life or movement to be seen whilst wandering about with the .303 Lee-Enfield rifle slung on one shoulder. There was also a very powerful searchlight mounted on a tripod with which to scan the perimeter occasionally. First stag also meant getting out again at midnight to relieve the third stag ; another advantage of being first stag was that when 0200 rolled around you could sleep until dismount (or play cards !). Second stag - 2000 to 2200 and 0200 to 0400 - was generally regarded as a bit of a pain.

Not that I minded whether first second or third stag was best - after two or three twelve hour guard duties in my first month at 591 Coy I was taken off the list and placed instead on Recovery Duty. This was much, much preferable to spending all night either prowling around inside the perimeter wire keeping the Egyptian civilians on their feet or conversing with the German Army P.O.W. patrols who also did two hours on and four hours off all night. The Egyptians were equipped with paraffin hurricane lamps and were supposed to keep awake and shout to the armed sentry as soon as they saw anything suspicious. Most of the time they would crouch down and put the lamp underneath their galabias to keep warm; from a distance they looked like Christmas tree lights. They patrolled the six-foot wide track between the outer barbed wire fence and the second one.

The space between the two inner fences was patrolled by German prisoners of war; they were all former members of Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps - no Kreigsmarine or Luftwaffe personnel as far as I can remember. While on guard duty they were armed with pickaxe handles. I found it interesting to hear Egyptians and Germans in the middle of the night conversing with one another in a form of English language. By day, the Germans displayed no further interest at all in conquering the world and simply wanted to get back to Germany as soon as possible; this didn't happen until early 1949. They were, of course, much older than our own rank and file; they had largely been in North Africa for more than six or seven years and were deeply suntanned, with leathery skin.

A lot of the lads struck up friendships with some of the POWs but those of us who had endured and survived the blitzes on Plymouth, Liverpool, Bristol and other places kept our distance as far as possible. There were quite enough chances of becoming involved in private arguments and fisticuffs without starting World War Three, which already seemed to be brewing in Berlin, according to the newspapers. The POWs passed their leisure time by fashioning cigarette cases and other souvenir articles out of discarded (British) army mess-tins. This would bring them in a few piastres with which to buy luxury items such as writing paper, cigarettes, matches and so on.

If they managed to squander their money on beer they must have done so in secret, because never in the few months that we occupied the same patch of sand did I see any POWs drinking. Neither did I ever hear groups of POWs singing patriotic numbers like the Horst Wessel marching music or Deutschland Uber Alles. There are ex-Army personnel even today who keep in touch with German prisoners they met during National Service. Count me out.

Vehicle breakdowns could occur at any time of the day or night, thus it was possible to be woken up (by the petrol picket or guard commander) at an instant's notice to drive out and recover the vehicle involved. Most breakdowns were dealt with by towing the vehicle back to 591 with the Austin 6 x 4 using a small towbar, with the driver steering his vehicle as necessary. Others were a little more interesting, such as disentangling a road accident, possibly requiring some inventiveness with the 6 x 4's jib. Among the many pieces of equipment belonging to the 6 x 4 was a set of ground anchors but these were of limited use in sand and I never did have occasion to use them. We also had a smaller recovery truck, an Army modified Chevrolet 30 cwt, which was used for straightforward towing jobs with staff cars, although it was known to have recovered 15 cwt Bedfords on suspended tow.

Apart from the variety of breakdowns and crashes to be dealt with from time to time, there was an occasional bending of the rules to make life more bearable. For instance, it was a court-martial offence in the Canal Zone to run out of petrol whilst on duty. Woe betide anyone who did so. A couple of times I got called out in the middle of the night to recover a "broken down" staff car complete with officer passenger. It normally didn't take long to determine the cause of the engine coming to a halt, but to announce it out loud would have got the driver into deep trouble

It was therefore politic to tell the driver his car would have to be towed back to 591 because of a defect in the petrol pump or a leaking fuel line (nudge nudge, wink wink). This was long established routine among recovery truck mechanics; there were so many staff cars on so many journeys that people were always running out of petrol. The settling up came early next morning, with a quantity of cigarettes changing hands, the size of the transaction depending on what time I was awakened and how long it kept me out of my bed. Telling fibs on a recovery report would probably also have been a court martial offence - I never found out.

The foreman of the civilian staff at 591 Coy was an Italian called Mr Pitta - I never heard anybody call him by his first name. He was in his early forties at the time and before the war was part of the Bugatti international racing team. He could always be relied upon to come up with the right solution to problems associated with the ignition or fuel systems of our more expensive staff cars, such as the Daimler and the Humbers. Not that I ever encountered many of those problems - 90 per cent of the repairs I carried out were on Dodge, Ford and Bedford trucks - but our Staff Sergeant was very glad to have Mr Pitta on the books. There was one occasion when even Pitta was lost for an answer, that was when the Cadillac Imperial lost some of its impetus due to what turned out to be a valve problem. Fortunately, one of the German NCO prisoners had formerly worked for the General Motors agency in Cologne and he was able to advise on the necessary treatment.

A typical day at 591 would start off with wash, shave and make for the cookhouse, stopping en route at the civilian laundry tent to collect/deliver KD items. Khaki Drill shorts, shirts and trousers would sometimes last two or three days without attention from the Chinese laundryman (known as a "dhobi wallah", a name which originated in India during a much earlier time of the British Empire) whereas most of us would manage to launder our own smaller items of clothing. The dhobi wallah had a gap between his front teeth and he would use this for spraying water on to the KD items prior to ironing them; the resultant creases never gave cause for complaint. Perhaps he put starch in the water before spraying. Shaving was accomplished at weekends by the one drawing the short straw making a pre-breakfast trip to the cookhouse to bring back a mug or two of hot tea. This was luxury compared with weekday shaving which involved cold water.

Breakfast often consisted of hot porridge (with not enough sugar), bacon, egg, sausage, toast, butter and unlimited tea. On other days there might be fish or corned beef instead of bacon. A short discussion with members of other platoons to get wind of the latest rumours about the demobilisation programme or who crashed the 15 cwt into the side of B Platoon office the night before, and it was back to the tent to get ready for work. Rumours of demob "must be speeded up next week without fail" were normally put about by staff car drivers who were obviously in pole position to overhear snippets from the back seat during their duty runs. Invariably the rumours turned out to be absolutely unfounded, unreliable and untrue. Far more interesting to discuss the latest car crash.

Work of a routine nature was relatively interesting for those of us who were anxious to expand our knowledge of vehicles. Not only of vehicles but of components also; it was just not possible to obtain new replacements for engines, gearboxes, starter motors, dynamos, distributors and the like. Faulty ones had to be repaired unless the fitter doing the job struck lucky and was able to get a lift to the scrapyard at Tel el Kebir, where he might be able to pick up a serviceable one before the REME lads got hold of it.

REME people at the time carried out full reconditioning of popular vehicles right down to the paint job (but not the div signs) and it was sometimes impossible to recognise that a particular wagon had not come direct from the UK. Midway through the morning there was a NAAFI break, when somebody whose turn it was would take a vehicle and load it up with a couple of dozen fancies, doughnuts, marzipan slices, a gallon of tea and so on. It had to be cash up front at the NAAFI and cash up front at the other end when the orders were sorted out back in the workshop.

The 591 Coy camp area also accommodated 101 Coy; I believe they must have shared the same Commanding Officer (Maj. F. Lindop-Evans) and the same Company Office and administration set-up. They certainly shared everything else including the cookhouse, football pitch, car parks and boxing ring. 101 Coy ran forty or fifty Troop Carrying Vehicles (TCVs), all of which were of Dodge or Ford origin. Built as two and a half tonners, they had all been fitted with wooden bench-type seats in the passenger compartment and access was via a wooden flight of steps at the rear with metal tubular handrails. 101 Coy's only other vehicles were two Leyland Hippo 33-seater coaches of late 1930s vintage, labelled "A" and "B" for identification purposes. One or the other was usually parked on the concrete ramp having its clutch gear repaired.

The CO was keen on sport and arranged for the 591 Coy soccer team to be entered in the MELF (Middle East Land Forces) Championship. One day the CO attended an important home match and was dismayed to see the reserve goalkeeper between the sticks; he asked the RSM why the first-choice 'keeper was not playing and the reply was to the effect that he - the CO - had had the goalkeeper put inside for some misdemeanour. "Get him out straight away", said he, and the kick-off was delayed for ten minutes until the 'keeper arrived. I can't remember whether the company won or lost on that occasion.

On another occasion there was a bit of a crunch and one of the company players suffered a dislocated wrist. The trainer (a sergeant) ran on to the pitch and rendered first aid, with the result that the player was helped off the pitch with the same wrist broken. And there were no substitutes in those far-off days !

On the lower levels of soccer, there was an inter-platoon competition with teams entered from Workshops, 101 Coy A, B, C, and D plus Admin. The football kit was kept in a wooden hut adjacent to the pitch and there was a free-for-all when it came to the issue of boots, jerseys and shorts, although some of the more affluent or enthusiastic players had privately-owned shorts. Referees were appointed according to their knowledge of the game, their desire to get away from work and the number of supporters for each of the two teams. Workshops certainly won the competition in 1948/49 season and I still have the scars to prove it. But no medals were issued - just the glory !

The boxing ring was frequently in use for training and about once a month for a programme of serious bouts. On these occasions it was necessary to purchase a ticket to see the action, and truckloads of enthusiastic supporters came from near and far as well as staff cars bringing the officers from other units. The Navy supplied contestants from time to time and these arrived at the Fayid Lido, being brought to the camp by 591 road transport. Civilian catering and ice cream suppliers did a roaring trade and the NAAFI dispensed the beer. No one ever seemed to know what happened to the takings from these boxing tournaments but rumours were widespread !

Driving vehicles was my main hobby in those days; repairing them gave a certain measure of satisfaction, but driving was the reward. With so many different makes and models to pick from, it is not possible to look back fifty-odd years and select a favourite drive. With one exception ! Having met up one evening in Ismailia with a couple of RASC drivers on some sort of scheme or exercise from outside the Canal Zone, John Aucutt and I arranged a rendezvous for the following morning. The arrangement was for the two visitors to have a drive along the Canal Road in a staff car: Aucutt and I would each have a drive in a tank transporter along the Treaty Road, nothing bigger than a car being allowed to use the Canal Road in those days, except in emergency.

Five years previously, as a thirteen-year-old, I had been an enthusiastic admirer of the U.S.Army's vehicle fleet; in the days prior to D-Day it was customary to wave and cheer at the lengthy convoys of trucks and jeeps which made their way down our street on their way to the docks and wharves where their passengers would be offloaded for the voyage in troopships to the Normandy beaches. On the roads leading to Slapton Sands in the South Hams a lot of the vehicles were tank transporters carrying Sherman and other tanks; these were then offloaded and reversed into the LSTs. The area around Slapton Sands was not open to the public, but the destination was fairly obvious. The U.S.Army had been rehearsing there for months.

Nostalgia set in when I spotted the Diamond T parked up at the Fayid test route; apart from a slight alteration to the colour scheme and the addition of British Army div signs, this was exactly the same make and model as those which had used the roads of the South Hams I can not now remember whether this was diesel or petrol driven, but the engine was already ticking over nicely when I climbed aboard. I had a good look round at the controls and was given some rudimentary advice before finding no difficulty at all in pulling away smoothly; before long I was in top gear and enjoying the sensation of power under the five foot long bonnet. In top gear, with a clear road, it was easy to achieve top speed (about 25 m.p.h. I seem to recall !). This was real living - and these two other squaddies were getting paid to do it !

All too soon my twenty minutes was up and it was time for one of the visitors to take the wheel of the Super Snipe which we had managed to arrange for the demonstration (with test plates in position, of course !). I stayed behind with the driver's mate - couldn't leave any vehicle unattended - and the other pair were back within half an hour, the visitor having been thoroughly impressed with his high speed drive. We mentioned having another meeting in the near future but this, regrettably, never materialised.

Of the other vehicles available at 591 Coy, I did most of my driving in the Austin 6 x 4 recovery truck, but another favourite was the Bedford QL; its main features were high ground clearance, a ratchetted hand throttle, excellent visibility from the driver's seat and a circular gun ring in the roof (passenger side) of the cab which would let in any available fresh air. The fifteen cwt had an almost inflexible suspension when empty but was a much better drive when fully loaded. The three tonner was a very versatile wagon at all times and was the most comfortable of the three to drive.

A Thornycroft mobile workshop was recorded as being on my charge but I never had occasion to drive it anywhere outside the camp area. Each and every Army vehicle had to be on somebody's charge for the convenience of the admin people when anything went wrong with it; they needed to know who to put on a fizzer if the tyres became flat or the engine wouldn't start. In the case of the Thorny, the engine had to be able to start so that the machine tools, lathes, etc could be used. For the same reason I was also responsible for the good working order of the two-stroke engine which kept the paint shop's spraying equipment going; this was no problem because Rollinson the painter was also Rollinson the right-back of the football team; he looked after it very well and I never needed to do anything to it.

The Humber family of vehicles was very well represented at 591, with several Pullmans, two or three 4 x 4 field cars and about a dozen Snipes and Super Snipes, one of the latter supplying my first experience of driving in excess of 100 m.p.h. - that was on the Canal Road, which was iddeal for the purpose. The Super Snipes had originally belonged to the Palestine Police, I understand.

There were various odds and ends of cars, perhaps the most odd being a black 1938 Rolls Royce Wraith with civilian number plates EYX 367. It was used exclusively by the Commander-in-Chief, Middle East Land Forces and might, perhaps, have been his own private property. A correspondent of mine - the late Bill Derbyshire - put in a lot of work re-constructing the history of this vehicle and it was last heard of doing duty as a hearse in the U.S.A.

Another oddity, also with civilian plates, was a black 1940 Cadillac Imperial; this one was, likewise, used only by the C-in-C. Moving on to the more run-of-the-mill staff cars we had American and Australian Chevrolets, with the gearstick on the steering column, bench.-type front seat and one-piece front windscreen. Not much fun to drive compared with the Humber staff cars. One more oddity was a Daimler saloon, which drew quite a lot of attention with its old-fashioned but regal appearance.

Yet another oddity (insofar as we only had the one) was a 30 cwt Fordson WOT (I believe WOT was an abbreviation for War Office Truck). This had a Ford V8 engine and landed me in a very sticky situation. Several of us (including an electrician or two) had been having a go at the erratic performance of the engine and I rashly agreed to drive the truck over to the test route and see whether I could solve the problem. I say "rashly" because it was about 45 minutes before knocking-off time on a Bank Holiday half day.

Having arrived at the test route and tried several adjustments I found that the engine would not restart - the battery power was low, having been used on and off all morning. This was a bit worrying because I was (against orders) on my own with the truck; there was no chance of anyone else from the company arriving because of the imminent knocking-off time, no one from any other company ever used our test route and not even the Military Police patrols would be likely to leave the main road, even if they saw the truck; there's never one about when you want one !

A lot of thought went into my next move, which was to stay with the truck and plan out what to do for the best. After half an hour or so I decided to give the engine one more chance and then start walking. I got hold of the starting handle, turned it to the three o'clock position and gave one more mighty heave. The engine fired and immediately settled into a nice, steady tickover. End of problem.

I could only assume, as I drove comfortably back to camp, that the battery had been rested sufficiently to muster just enough energy to do the trick. Having tinkered, checked and double checked everything so many times in that worrying ninety minutes, one thing has stuck in my memory ever since - the 1-5-4-8-6-3-7-2 firing order of an eight cylinder engine. An incredibly useless piece of information which I have never ever needed since !

All in all I enjoyed my fifteen months in the Canal Zone; Army life was not as closely controlled by the top brass as some people imagine it to have been. Even in the infantry regiments there was plenty of scope for those who wanted to diversify. 101 Company, although designated RASC, drew on various infantry regiments to supply drivers; the South Wales Borderers, East Kents and Royal Fusiliers come readily to mind.

In 591 Coy RASC nobody got into any kind of serious trouble, most of the incidents while I was there being connected in some way with vehicles and civilian traffic. Although 591 was in close proximity to other Service camps, I don't recall any troubles of an inter-unit variety, at least not in the Fayid area. Any real outbreaks of fighting seemed to be confined to places like Ismailia, Suez or Port Said, Cairo being out of bounds to servicemen in uniform. The Military Police were seldom seen in the area Fayid - Fanara - Geneifa - Kabrit except when dealing with traffic accidents.

Within the camp itself minor incidents worthy of record, mainly because of their humorous nature, occurred almost weekly. Such as the time when a section of the camp was plunged into darkness due to a vehicle of some kind accidentally being driven a shade too close to an electrical distribution box. Nothing at all funny or unusual about that except that one of the tents affected was the barber's shop run by an Egyptian civilian. The RSM was halfway through a shave and haircut when it happened.

My own very first involvement in a vehicle collision took place in the main car park at about 2 mph. Driving forward out of a line of TCVs I turned the steering wheel too much, too soon with the result that the front wing became a little squashed. I had to get round the Turkish civilian welder to patch the damage before anyone could find out about it. Another of my accidents was when I entered the camp via the main entrance in a Humber Tourer. Thanks to defective brakes (the Humber was being returned from a test run and the brakes were listed !), I was unable to stop quickly enough to get the horizontal barrier swung up out of the way by the guard on duty and contact was made with the top of the radiator housing; the barrier went up without any assistance from the guard. Damage was, fortunately, negligible - just a slight dent.

One of our Workshops lads drove up to the NAAFI shop to collect a tray of goodies for the mid-morning break and backed his TCV into a veranda supporting pillar, which gave way. He appeared before the CO and was fined half the cost of the damage to the TCV; seems that the NAAFI building was nothing to do with the Army when it needed repairing.

Personally, I only "appeared" before the CO on one isolated occasion; he had seen, with his own eyes, a vehicle being driven along outside of camp but passing within ten yards of his desk, only the barbed wire fence impairing his vision. He seized on the fact that the TCV was clearly exceeding the speed limit and, equally clearly, was carrying a plate which read "591 COY - ON TEST". Very little detective work was required by the Company Sergeant Major, who was despatched to get the name of the driver, KR in fact.

Next morning, after all the formalities of "Cap off - About turn - Quick march - Left right left right " and so on, the CO patiently explained to me that speeding normally carried a penalty of a week inside ("inside" being time spent in the Walled-Off Astoria at Moascar Military Correction Establishment). He would, he said, be cutting off his nose to spite his face if he embarked on that procedure; vehicle mechanics - even inexperienced ones - were not easily replaced in the short term. So the outcome was (fortunately) "Keep the speed down in future, Roberts" - "Admonished, Sgt Major" (this for the record of proceedings !).

After many false alarms, and extended active service due to the Palestine situation, the day eventually arrived for all of Demob Group 113 to leave the Canal Zone. We sailed aboard the "Empress of Australia" from Port Said with, in my case, the prospect of attending my sister's wedding the day after arrival in the U.K.; That was bound to be a time of great celebration, meeting family and friends and generally enjoying the starting day of civilian life. Not so. The Liverpool dockers chose this very time to call a total strike and I missed the wedding by twenty four hours. I have never supported or joined a trade union since !

I am deeply indebted to Graeme Spink for his patience, determination, skill, experience and sheer doggedness in unravelling the mysteries (to me) of the internet and web pages. Without his guiding influence “Ken Roberts’ Army Service” would have comprised a boring heap of text unrelieved by any colour, pictures or illustrations, not to mention the sand-coloured background.

Grateful thanks also go to my wife Margaret, who very carefully embroidered the coloured RASC badge which appears near the beginning of the page.

Finally, many thanks to daughter Sally for explaining, in words of one or two syllables, how to work the computer in the first place.