33 Engineer Regiment

(FI )Do you remember the time we were clearing the areas and we decided to play 'walk in a straight line no matter what was in your way'? Well we were all walking through peat piles, boggy land and all other kinds of crap,when Sully(mad dog magee)Sullivan stopped walking. As we were trained,we all stopped the line,Half the section looked left at Mad dog, the other half looked right to see what he had found. Was it a mine,was it a shell could it even be a missile?

We waited in anticipation what could it be? I was a puddle,it was only 18 inches wide so what was the problem? The problem was 'walk in a straight line' rules say step in it. So Sully not to do things by half jumps in.18 inches wide BUT 5 foot deep!!!!! Whoosh if Sully hadn't stuck his arms out he would of gone,laugh I nearly wet my self,which reminds me of another story.

Same tour. It was new years eve and we were all drunk beyond all reasoning partying like there was no tomorrow when the coastel bar closes. So no to break any rules about drinking in the rooms we decide to keep the party going but in the corridor.

Well as the night gets on so do a few of the lads, first Deefa decides to put lighter gas in his mouth and spit it onto a lighter.OOOOOHHH flames we are all impressed,then someone tells him "blow it out your nose"The blind leading the blind off he goes.Of course he burns his nose.

Now Studs IS NOT GOING TO BE OUT DONE, off to his room he staggers.Next thing Studs bites the lid of his petrol can he uses to fill his lighter,I will swear he was swallowing the stuff so much was going into his mouth.Next he motions to some one for a lighter. He lights the lighter and spits,BUT not hard enough,the petrol sticks to his face and he runs up and down the corridor beating on his own face,closely followed by the rest of us beating on his face!!!When he is put out he instantly goes into shock.Well we are all so well trained in first aid that is not a problem.we all rally round to help him when we hear a scream of WAIT,it is Deefa "quick"he shouts take a photo of me and Studs,so what do you do we all had our piccie taken with him then pack him off to the hospital.I just remember going into his room the next morning and he was bandaged up like the invisible man! Aparantly all the medics were drunk as well.Happy new year never to be forgotten.Thanks lads

Gaz Nash Memory - He was chuffed at aquiring the new regulation wool mix socks from some infantry shortly after arriving on island. Few days later I snatched them off his bunk and he wasn't well pleased. He had also aquired a female pen pal and by crimbo was madly in love?? He had always been goin on about getting a disc camera like I had so he could take his own pics. Anyway, havin stashed his new socks for about six weeks and still havin the box for the disc camera the obvious wind up was plotted. With help of Spike and Erroll we managed to get his penpals address, I put the socks into the camera box, wrapped it in crimbo paper and stuck the penpals name and address on it as the sender. The parcel was slipped into the crimbo post delivery. I remember he felt awful because he had stopped writing to the lass a few weeks before parcel "arrived". and obviously missed the outward mail for crimbo so couldn't even post a card thankin her. If memory serves me correct we all gathered in mess for beers and opened some pressies. Gaz began to open THE parcel and was over the moon at seeing the box cover with Kodak Disc Camera on it...I actually thought he was goin to wet himself, however it was the troop that ended up wettin themselves when he actually opened the box and pulled out the socks..I think the words were You Bastards!!!! x 6

We were down at Redwing park,doing the usual" tidy up time".When we saw the naffi wagon heading towards us.As it got nearer we noticed that the side hatch was up.Sandy in his usual manner rallyed the troops round ready to greet the nice man driving up to see us.As Sandy approached the naffi waller, and proceded to give his order,he was told that nothing was for sale.Gasp,Shock and Horrer.We were taken a back,this part timer refused us hard working sappers nosh.Sandy being the nco in charge,and knows how to look after his chaps,asked the guy again.No way this guy was not budging.It was his day off he said.By this time Sandy had gone somewere,but had returned.He again asked the guy to serve us other wise (as he shows him) i will throw this grenade in to your van."Ive told you, im on my day off" he said.At this point Sandy removed the pin."last chance"he said.The guy couldnt belive his eyes,and talking with a tremble in his voice,he gave the same answer.As Sandy tossed the grenade in to the van,Daly Thompson on steroides couldnt have beat this guy,there was a strong smell of shit and burning dms.As he looked back there was about ten of usrolling around on the floor.How was he to know, that we took all the dets out for safty reasons.Oh happy days.

I loved the irony that was 33, thinking back and remembering Big Pete Rowell a mature sapper who joind at the age of 27 after spending years as a chauffeur around london. Now looking for a challenge a bit of danger something different,

(the 33 way ah! sapper Rowell you can be C.O.s driver for the next year)

Crash Crew (odd job and demo duties)

We should all be able to remember everybodys overwhelming need to collect shiney scrap for beer funds piss ups etc, but I remember a time when the squadron was at it as well by clearing the timber yard af all the crap that had accumilated over the years.

the idea was to make all of this kit look a little less menacing to be able to weigh it all in down the local scrappies this was done with the aid of sthiles saws and gas axes (the HSE would have loved this one) at lunchtime it was bank run after getting our �20 out for the weekend it was back to lodge hill where Jarpe Blyth (as I remember) was left beavering away on his own as the 4 tonner was parking up whump and a plume of smoke apeared from the timber yard the first aid kit and stretcher was grabbed from the crash bay and we ran up expecting to see a mess a very shaken Jarpe was spreadeagled against the chain link fence when he managed to cut through a marine marker burster charge with the afore mentioned gas axe he had squares on his back for ages

Do any of you remember Donger?(Neil Cowie?)Well him being a pad and used to sleeping in a double bed, sleeping on the top bunk in the coastel was roughing it.He was used to having room to roll around,well after a few beers off to his bunk he toddles,he forgets where he is and rolls over in the middle of the night.Can any of you remember the little writing table that was fixed to the wall under the window? Well if Donger had forgotten about it he certainly remembered as he hit it face first falling earthward,that was the BEST black eye I saw for years.Which jogs my memory with another story about Donger......................

So after a few beers(does this sound familier) Donger toddles off to his room,now he has learnt to curb the rolling around,(see story above!) Poor old Dong has a night mare he wakes up and because of the black out rules can't see a f*cking thing, he is drunk and completly disoriented he starts to crawl to the end of his bed,he puts his arm out to touch the floor(fogetting he is on the top bunk) He can't feel anything so get a bit panicy but keeps crawling until he comes to the little lockers at the end of the bed,so now he can feel the ceiling so he crawls to the end of the lockers on top of the suitcases,now he gets to the wall and can't get any further.AHA he has sussed it>

He starts screaming at the top of his voice THE COASTEL IS UPSIDE DOWN THE COASTEL IS UPSIDE DOWN.Apparantly he was having some kind of Posiden adventure nightmare

Imagine the scene, a nice sunny day and Phill Holroyd and section have been tasked by John Quinn to take a bimble along the ridge from Moody Brook to Navy Point and along the way dem some stockpiles, No probs, only other instruction move ammo and blow on far side away from Stanley. So of we jolly well went, making our presence felt by a bang or two along the way. Nearing the end of the day one more pile to go, but bugger ir still got a long stroll back. Yes you guessed we blew it where it was on the slope over looking Stanley. We got back to the 4 tonner at Moody Brook and Piggy Parsons was waiting with Quinns jeep, with orders to get Phill back to the office were in the preverble again, we travel back trying to work out whats wrong. It seems our last dem was a dem to far with the low cloud cover and a gentle breeze across the sound our dem bounced shockwaves across strong enought to take windows out in the Secetariat, the hospital and sods law Goverment House, unamused Rex Hunt.

Outcome pack your bags boys your on a early start, bugger of to Goose Green for a week, oops!!!!

Scoops Donger stories dredged up another from the depths, we were sent on a job to clear some farmers spud patches up Hereford way, the RAF had a training camp there. In their most unhelpfull way they put us up, buggers, no subby. We were placed i a block of 4 long rooms, by our lonesome. To our amazement in the toilets all the sinks had individual cubicles with curtains, the RAF where not amused in the morning to see a row of open curtains and bare arses, first warning. Final straw, good night in the Naffi bar, stagger back to bed, in the morning no Donger, he is awoken by a crab coming of Guard duty and demanding to know what Dongers up to right bed shame it was the room above. On return to camp that night awaiting us was the treasured no availability of accomadation chit, subby here we come. Donger always blamed it on the cheap cider we brought from a old farmer, tasted all right to me.

Same tour as above.On the way back to the camp,as Pete said we bought cider.Now we stopped at the farm house to purchase the liquid gold,and by pure luck found the BEST farmer in Herefordshire.He takes us in the barn to get our cider,which one do you want lads he asks,he is staring at blank faces.Ok says the farmer and he pours us a pint of sweet,I take a swig pass it on Foss takes a swig passes it on some else takes a swig and it goes down the line till it gets to the driver,so waste not want not he skulls it.Thats ok we say we will have that.AH says the farmer you haven't tasted the medium yet.So another pitcher gets poured,it goes down the line and again the driver(Spike Martin???) downs it.

Ok we will have that one,Ah says the farmer you haven't tasted the dry one yet.So just to keep up the name of the Regiment and to stay in with the locals we oblige. Down the line to the driver it goes.Ok we will have that one, by this time most of us are a little drunk so we don't notice Spike staggering and slurring.Ah but the farmer says you haven't tasted sweet& medium.So we get EVERY combination of all of them.By this time we are falling over tripping up, solving the worlds problems puking swearing and being our selfs.So now we all pick the one we want and are just about to leave when the farmer says AH you haven't tasted the Perry (pear cider) yet come to my other barn!!!!! None of us were able to walk that far so we gave it a miss.How we got back alive beats me.We were sh!tfaced but the driver was double sh!tfaced.Any way we all lived so no harm ever came of that one

Are you all bored with my when I's yet? If not here is another.

We were all sent to the Mull of Kintyre (Tarbert?)to clear the old battleship firing ranges.Well this about 2000 square acres of heather and nothing else.We had to walk into the area every day.That was a couple of miles just to get to work! We were staying in b&b and the landlady lived up to her Scotish heraldly and wasn't too generous with the porridge each and every morning.We had to fend for ourself at lunch time.As I said at the begining we were miles from life itself.

The Army in its wisdom sent us an APC so we could lock up our tools and equipment every night.So we all know what the secret weapon of the APC is eh?Thats right THE BV so now the problem of the midday meal is sorted out. Every one bring a tin of soup and heat it in that.

There was still one little problem Every day Zwoz would "forget" to go to the store the night before so he would be for ever mooching someones "spare" soup.Now this got way beyond a joke so one lunch time Zwoz pulls the same old trick so one of the lads offers him a tin of stewed beef. Now Zwoz jumps at the chance of free food,he stabs the tin with his Army issue can opener and the boiling hot gravy shoots in the air.Not wanting to lose any free food Zwoz risks 3rd degree burns and sticks his mouth over it, he slaps his lips but not too eagerly, he then procedes to open his tin like a man possesed. He starts to shovel the beef away. His only statement is "this is a bit rough" What says Steg "Rough" says Zwoz. What says Steg? ROUGH ROUGH screams Zwoz. By this time we are all wetting ourselves .Steg has one more comment and that is ,Listen lads he is barking ruff ruff. It was at that precise moment that Zwoz realises he is eating hot pedigree chum!!!!! He was so pissed off he kicked all our meals over. From that day on he was known as not Zwozdiack but DOGDIACK.

Hello men, first time in the site since the Effer told me about it and it brings back some great memories. The last one I read was the one aboutZwoz (dog) diak. Can anybody remember when we set off for the Falklands and we were all chatting on the bus about how much we could save and things and what we could buy when we got home? Well Zwoz chirped up (this is before he learned to bark) and said that his brand new wife would save a fortune for him as he had told her to only get money from the bank to pay the bills. Two weeks into the tour Zwoz gets the message his wife is in hospital with malnutrition!!!! Good girl!!

It didn't take much brains to marry a squaddie in those days.

If I remember correctly he did get a car. If it hadn't been for the doctors he'd only have needed a motor bike.

Keep the stories up men. I'm in Iraq doing some private security work and it's nice to read them and keep it real

Wandering through a toy shop the other day and came across a simple little game that, if memory serves me right, caused some good laughs.

"PASS THE PIGS", ring a bell in anyones mind, for those not familiar with this concept, the set constists of two pencils, a score pad and two small plastic pigs. There are a set of positions each scoring different points, some losing points the aim is simply the first to reach a certain score. I remember these appeared at the airport whilst waiting to fly to the Falklands, once there they were included in our games nights.

Think on the night we opened our bar, with the only brass bar top on the island, the CRE was a visitor and spent part of the evening playing pigs with the boys.

That tour again - `83 to `84. I've just been having a jobby in a hole in the ground in Iraq with fliesfeasting off my rusty starfish when this memory came back. Who can remember those toilets on the coastel? They were quite comfy but with one dreadful flaw, depending where you were at the time. They operated on a vacuum system to save water and the flaw was that some prick discovered you could flush them from the corridor outside by pulling a wee handle. Manys the time I was nearly pulled inside out through my sherrifs badge when some passing wag would pull the handle in the off-chance that someone may be having a private moment. Apart from the rapid acceleration of the jobby from arse to pan it didn't half leave a red mark on your cheeks by the time the suction had eased up enough to let you off.

Southend Airport job, coming up to christmas 84. We were having a few `shwallies in the hotel bar before going out to a disco as they were called in those days. Jock Bateman for some reason thought he had a big tadger and never used to wear skiddies. Well in he comes with these white cheesecloth type trousers and no panties as he thought that made his knob bigger. Standing at the bar, delicate botty cough and lo and behold out pops jimmy the jobby. Did anyone tell him? Silly question really. He looked fantastic under the ultra violet lights.

well the only story I can think of about young Errol.

Christmas time in sunny old falklands and like most of us Errol is missing his loved ones. Ahah what is that happy sound? It's mail call yippee the last mail call before Christmas day.So we all rip into our pressies from home and hang our Christmas cards up from our penpals.Everyone is getting into the spirit.

So we all check each others gifts out and there is Errol looking like a jock that has found a pound and lost a fiver.

Errol has opened his gifts and in none too pleased.So he opens the fire exit door and shows us what has been sent to him

First WHITE socks.No good down here,so he deep sixes them,next he shows us his OOR WULLIE book. F*CK it I read Frasers so that gets the deep six treatment too. Happy Christmas says Errol as he storms off to his bunk.

TIMES YOU WISH THAT THE GROUND REALLY COULD OPEN UP AND SWALLOW YOU

I went down too Hoo one saturday afternoon instead of hitting the George. My companions were Christmas Eve (later Payne) and Phil, can't remember the second name but he was a Scottish POM. After getting lightly oiled we went into the bookies at the insistence of Xmas who thought he was a bit of a wide boy. He's from Reading which means he was roped into the big bracket of "comes from the south east so must be a cockney".

Anyway neither Phil or me knew much about horse racing so we followed him in. Xmas puts his bet on and we sit back to watch the screen. After a wee bit nothing had happened so you can imagine his anger when a sign is put on the board for his race saying "OFF". Bastards he shouts and stomps up to the lassie and asks for his money back. She tells him he can't have it back. "I've paid good money for this bet and now the race is cancelled. I want my money".

"No sir" she says, "OFF means the race has started".

Holy f****. Red faces and much amusement for the civvies. Time for me and Phil to leg it leaving a crimson faced Xmas to stutter an apology.

Frank Liddle was famous for his "Liddleisms" he would totaly astound people with some of the things he came out with, one day waiting for the ferry to come accross to Failaka island to take us back to Kuwait city, Frank was getting fed up, he said "if this ferry doesn't come soon I'm going to get in that canoe over there and swim home" (SWIM in a canoe??), another time, in the redwing we were a bit worse for wear and Frank had enough, he had the best part of a pint of guinness in his hand and asked Vern to tip it out of the window, vern said "put it down the sinkbehind the Bar" Frank thought for a second and said "but that would be a waste!".

another time, in a minibus on the M25 heading back to Lodge hill we were in a traffic jam, frank was driving everyone else was dozing, we heard Frank mumbling to himself " I wish I had an orange flashing light" intrigued, one of the boys asked him why. Frank's answer was "I'd paint it green and pretend I'm a doctor"(......why not just wish for a green one????)

lastly....the classic question..."what's in that ham sandwich nobby?" nobby's reply "chicken" Frank says " I'm not having one of them then!"

anyone else rember any liddleisms?

Spook Brown (used to be in the IED bay) and me were sent on a blue light driving course with essex police, we had one of the new IED vans, a ford tranny with a 2.8i V6 cosworth engine.........anyway, our instructor was an old PC called Bob, apart from burning rubber round the lanes of essex part of the course was a morning on a skidpan, which was surrounded by a housing estate's back gardens, me and spook going sideways in a circle in a couple of old cop cars and PC Bob stood in the middle shouting instructions.

After a few hours on the pan we went into the police driving school for a brew before heading out on the road to burn more rubber, the superintendent called Bob the copper into his office, after a fair bit of shouting a sheepish looking Bob came out.

When we asked him what the problem was he said "a 3 year boy had been watching you two driving and he'd gone in and told his mum there were 2 soldiers driving police cars, and when she asked how they were getting on he said, "one's doing ok, but the other one is driving like a C***!"

Talking of Monty, he was refused entry onto Jersey for a job as being undesireable, pity really he was from Jersey.

I just nearly wet myself reading all of your stories!, your all the same!. Dad still has the SAME personality. Do any of you remember him?...if you do, do you have any stories to tell?!!......I know he was always getting into trouble (per my Mum) and he's really not one for talking about it now that I'm old enough to hear it. I'm over here in America going through some shit and would love to be cheered up....plus I can give him some crap!.

Claire-Marie Thompson (Danny Thompson's Daughter)

P.S. For those of you who sent money to help Sydney, Thank you. I can't remember how to get onto the chat sight. I think I tried a couple of times and it wouldn't let me log on....any idea's?. I can keep you updated on the latest events.....or you can call my Dad, I know that would cheer him up 01274-632720.

Just to say that Claire is no this DT's daughter...........Unless Scoop has another story to post that I have no recolection about. Nice to knowanother DT is out there though...They didn't do cloning at Portland Down Did They????

Did you join the queue???

Back in 78 or 9 when I was in 590 when I did my B III at Lodgehill, I a curious affliction struck the 49 guys on the course after a couple of days, One reported sick, came back grinning, same thing next day different guy, couple more the next day and so on. At the end of the week one of came up to me and said its my turn. "For what?" says I . "Report sick, tell them you've got piles. The new MO is a young bird -a cracker. If you go down there you get KY jelly, rubber gloves and a long finger and its magic- cost yer ��s in Chatham" Who else was in that queue -own up!!

Reading back over the comments made by Rick Walker and Greg Gregory made on this site i wonder where he is?

No body seems to know where he has disappeared to?

Monty and i met up together at Sutton Coldfield, then found we had both joined the RE's. Went on together to be in the same training party, 75/12, at Southwood and then both arrived on the same day at LodgeHill. We were good mates all through but when i left i lost touch with him, even tried to contact him through Manning and Records. He was from Jersey, his dad was ex REME and i spent many leaves with him there.

Where is he, somebody must know?

Danny Eff is a dad!!!!!!!! How unlucky is that kid? Poor wee Carrie

School sports - dad last in the sack race. First to the beer tent.

Other dads memories- the first x-box, the first ipod, Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. Her dad - first colour fuckin telly, first man on the moon, chitty chitty bang bang.

Still at least he is still getting his hole.

ome on men, where are all the sandbags and swinging lights?