For the first time that I can remember I switched on PM at 5pm on Radio 4 this evening and almost immediately switched it off again in a fit of contemptuous rage. I am a political animal. I find it all fascinating and intriguing, but even I have finally blown a gasket at BLOODY BREXIT. Our news media seem incapable of talking about anything else. OK, it’s important and our elected representatives have made a complete horlicks of it, but there must be something else going on in the World? There was a very strong temptation to take a sledgehammer to the offending transmitter but as it was my car radio the family transport would have taken quite a beating too, so common sense prevailed and I just switched to Classic FM for some calming Mozart. The really depressing part of the latest Brexit chat is that the whole Irish problem is rearing its ugly head again. Many people won’t remember what “The Troubles” were like in the 1970’s and ’80’s, both for Ireland and mainland Britain, but those that can will know full well that we don’t want to go back to those hideous days. That said, there was the odd lighter moment (in retrospect!). In 1972, I was based at RAF Bishops Court with the RAF Regiment. It was an old disused airfield and a real sleepy hollow whose main purpose then was housing Ulster Radar, which was responsible for the airways coming into the UK from the Atlantic. I had fallen passionately in lust with one of the gorgeous air traffic controllers and spent many an hour looking at her screen.
I was there on a three month detachment and had left my lovely shiny, brand new, bright red MGB roadster back home in Yorkshire. By chance she (Mary, name changed to avoid embarrassment!) was heading that way for a few days and (being trustingly hooked) I suggested she should pick up the gleaming beast and bring it back to Bishops Court where we could happily race it round the old runways and taxiways. I was breathless with excited anticipation of her return when I got a call from the docks. It was one of those Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy type calls where someone comes on and asks your name and there are a few clicks, then you’re told there’s someone on the line to speak to you and then a few more clicks and there’s Mary’s lovely voice, sounding a little stressed and clearly not saying what she wanted to say. Not being a Mensa member, it took me awhile to realise that someone was listening in. We exchanged a few platitudes and I asked about the trip and was the car ok etc, then another voice came back on and double-checked my identity and that was it. Sometime later Mary and the Roadster blew into the Officers’ Mess car park, with a somewhat frazzled but deliciously sexy blonde pointing an irate finger at me for causing her such hassle. What I had forgotten was that I had left a classified document in the boot. It was only “Restricted” which was the lowest security classification, but it was a manual for the General Purpose Machine Gun, which not unnaturally had set a few alarm bells ringing amongst the Border Guards!
I love the colour green and it may well have come from my time there. I spent a fair amount of time being green, whether it was being skinned alive at poker by a hoary old bunch of Air Traffic Controllers or sailing an Enterprise yacht down to Southern Ireland to visit one of their mothers. It was so choppy I was green for three days afterwards. The only saving grace was that Mother produced the BEST Irish coffee I have ever tasted; perfect before setting off on the return journey through the cascading tidal waves of the Irish Sea that played with a small dinghy in the way that Callie (the whippet) triumphantly tosses her latest bunny kill around.
I have many happy memories of service in a beautiful but terribly troubled country. Please, please, please don’t let all that kick off again.
ADayInTheStrifeOf 