23/11/2024
I remember guard duty like it was yesterday; that yellow floor polish smell again, the stick man, which I never got at guard mount, there was always someone with a smarter beret than me. Then there were the guard boxes, thrown together by the duty cook.
Every guard box had rock hard sugar and coffee, a lump of cheese, corn beef and tomato-*******-sandwiches, that tasted rank because the tomato had made the bread go soggy, and the smelly 10 day old, boiled egg, which would come back to haunt you at about 3 in the morning.
The lot was probably the rejects from horror bags, or they’d been sitting in the cook-house for the last few days.
Who can remember being pi**ed off because you’d pulled the 0200-0400 stag, then waking up at 0200 hours with a mouth like Gandhi’s, flip flop.
I don’t know about anyone else, but as soon as we left the warm confines of the guard room, it was head for the block to find a warm drying room, or somewhere we wouldn’t get caught, to have forty winks.
I think we’d be unlucky to get caught, the only thing that could go wrong, and it did, was if we overstayed our welcome in the drying room, and overlaid. Then we were really in the ****. Nobody was late back from their stag, unless they’d been sleeping.
Picture the scene. It’s now 0400 hours and we’re trying to get that last hour in, before 0500 hours when the lights would go on and the bumper would start swinging. The prisoners were already up cleaning their cells and making up the dreaded bed blocks, that they thought they’d left behind in training. Then we’d hear, the sound of the regimental policeman blabbering out. …’JEFDITEJEFDITEJEFDITEJEFDITEJEFDITEJEFDITEJEFDITE’ as he marches his prisoners off to sweep the square, at a stupid pace that no one could keep up with. I know, I tried it a few times.......
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British Army 1970’s 80’s
From the book Bumpers & Bed blocks by Clive Ward www.clivewardauthor.com
UK kindle price £3.33 or free on Kindle Unlimited also available in paper back
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0716FRJXH/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493477611&sr=1-1&keywords=bumpers+and+bed+blocks
Available on Amazon US, kindle price $4.31 or free on Kindle Unlimited. Paperback $9.50
https://www.amazon.com/Bumpers-Bed-Blocks-Clive-Ward/dp/1546329048/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1493652454&sr=8-2&keywords=bumpers+and+bed+block
Available on Amazon CAN, kindle price CDN$6.86 or free on Kindle Unlimited. Paperback CDN$16.07
https://www.amazon.ca/Bumpers-Bed-Blocks-Clive-Ward/dp/1546329048/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493652216&sr=1-1&keywords=bumpers+and+bed+blocks
Available on Amazon AU, kindle price $5.76 or free on Kindle
https://www.amazon.com.au/Bumpers-Bed-Blocks-Clive-Ward-ebook/dp/B0716FRJXH/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493652611&sr=8-1&keywords=bumpers+and+bed+blocks
