Major Brookes coming to the Squadron, everything by the book, no variation of dress, bar the smock he used to wear. Or the time we were on Regimental exercise on Salisbury plain end ex, who told 3 Sqn to leave, we carried on. I think what made it worse was you could see the camp lights at night. I think this was the exercise i called in a contact report only to find it was a firing party in the military cemetry near by.

Oh was i pleased to volunteer to go to EOD, however more good than bad memories of my time with the Sqn, will avail you with more after i clean them up and ensure they cannot be used in evidence against me

From: jon  (Original Message)

Sent: 09/01/2004 23:12

after having looked at the very brief history, 2 tours that I remember spring to mind. Firstly and proberbly the most important is that the sqn sent the first engineers out to yugoslavia in 1992, supporting  medical unit. the medics had the first female co to command an army unit on active service and we, 3 sqn, were the 1st british army unit into sarajavo since 1945, where we took 3 casualties in 3 days (accidents my arse, the serb bastards).secondly was the ex oakapple in 1995

We were on sqn exercise and absolutly chin-strapped after 4 days being run ragged by the a******e of the OC,with only about 2 hrs sleep aday. Picture the scene,early hours on a summer morning, we were digging battle trenches in the lovely soft soil of salisbury plain, 10 mins digging ,10 mins resting, Troopy Donini was getting his head down, as were the few blokes lucky enough to find decent digging ground. As if out of nowhere, the OC tips up and starts shouting the odds about us all being lazy as only someone with 8 hrs sleep a day can do. He finds  troopy, screams and shouts, threatens troopy with the CO and storms off. Everyone is now up and falling asleep on their shovels with the prospects of  no endex until all trenches are finished, when Troopy spies something in the nearish distance. Closer inspection through the binos makes him quite excited and he suddenly shoots off in his battlebus making a beeline for what now appears to be madmen tabbing across the plain. Minutes later Troopy arrives back and tells us to take things easy as he had sorted out some help and that we were to get breakfast on for a few extra guest. Sure enough about 10 mins later a large section  of Pioneers turn up and almost ripping the digging tools out of our hands, continue to finish of our trenches.Troopy had spotted that the bloke in charge, of the pioneers, was an old mate from Sandhurst and after a little chat his blokes were only too happy to do some digging. It turned out that the majority of them were miners sons so they were born to dig and welcomed the break from tabbing! Who said pioneers and some officers weren't useful

Hey Jon,I remember that scheme,yes we were so tired we didnt know our names and I remember that bastard appearing out of nowhere and going ballistic.he reamed all of us new butts because we had not shaved and were filthy.of course not having slept for four days constantly moving and being in the same clothes coverd in mud didnt help.your letter bought back a lot of memories good and bad.

does anyone remember tha Sgt whoes nick name was NUFF NUFF?,I played guitar and drank to much does anyone remeber me.

the pctures of lybia in 63 reminded me of a lot of names,Brummie Tonks,Clarence.Dave Rosa.Limbo King came home with me for a 72 hr weekend.in the pictures of the war memmorial outside Tobruk the middle bloke is me the one on the left is Brummie Tonks.

does anyone remember Sam Bass {the outlaw] ,he was in Malaya and after a few hw would tell outlandish war stories,{there was a snake in every bush a rebel in every tree but thay all stayed away from the outlaw}me and Sam got arrested in Weymouth for pinching a motorbike to get back to Tidworth,a month on short pay.

I remember we were in nick with the Ghurkas as R.Ps it was not nice.

can I get any copies of yhe photoes from Lybia?.

Godbless keep safe

Pete Anderson.

Hey Jon,I remember that scheme,yes we were so tired we didnt know our names and I remember that bastard appearing out of nowhere and going ballistic.he reamed all of us new butts because we had not shaved and were filthy.of course not having slept for four days constantly moving and being in the same clothes coverd in mud didnt help.your letter bought back a lot of memories good and bad.

does anyone remember tha Sgt whoes nick name was NUFF NUFF?,I played guitar and drank to much does anyone remeber me.

the pctures of lybia in 63 reminded me of a lot of names,Brummie Tonks,Clarence.Dave Rosa.Limbo King came home with me for a 72 hr weekend.in the pictures of the war memmorial outside Tobruk the middle bloke is me the one on the left is Brummie Tonks.

does anyone remember Sam Bass {the outlaw] ,he was in Malaya and after a few hw would tell outlandish war stories,{there was a snake in every bush a rebel in every tree but thay all stayed away from the outlaw}me and Sam got arrested in Weymouth for pinching a motorbike to get back to Tidworth,a month on short pay.

I remember we were in nick with the Ghurkas as R.Ps it was not nice.

can I get any copies of yhe photoes from Lybia?.

Godbless keep safe

Pete Anderson.

Hello Jock Whitfield, and any other old men of the midsixties including Ali Dace, so glad that some of you do remember the hill runs that were part of our lives at Tidworth, what a great site, I have found Frank Topham's place of abode, I see Tommo from 2Tp and even old "Farmer Shelham", even mentions of "Sugar" Almond bring back memories. Anybody out there remember my weddinig at RAF El Adam in 1968, well we are still both together.Result!!!!

My new e mail is davemaw@tiscali.co.uk