Private Robert W Ridout

Written by Bob before his death from Cancer age 78

8th October     1957    Signed on for The Parachute Regiment at Kentish Town

9th October     1957    Arrived Airborne Forces Training Depot Aldershot

January           1958    Parachute School RAF Abingdon first ever flight a week before first jump

February         1958    Continuation Training

April                1958     Posted to "A" Company 2nd Battalion (2 Para )

June               1958     Cyprus and Jordan

November      1958     Back home

January         1959      Troopship Dunera to Cyprus

September    1959      Fly to Kenya from Cyprus for three weeks

Summer        1960      Hitchhike from Cyprus to Blighty via Malta, Sicily, Italy (Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice) Austria, Germany, Holland (Arnham) and Belgium

July               1961      Fly to Kuwait

September    1961      Fly to rest camp in Bahrain then back to Kuwait

November     1961      Back to Cyprus

Various exercises in Libya during 3 years in Cyprus

December    1961      On leave in Blighty

March          1962       Overland Drive Cyprus to Blighty via Turkey (Iskandurne, near the Syrian border), Greece, Yugoslavia (Skojie, Belgrade, Zargreb, Rijeka ), Italy,                                     Austria, Germany, France and Guillimont Barracks at Cove nr Farnborough

Summer       1962      France exercise

September   1962     Greece exercise

November    1962     Got Married

December    1962     Another French exercise

March          1963      Fly to Bahrain

August         1963      Fly home and the Birth of our Son Bobby

October       1963      Demobbed

Over the years it seems as if I was in the army at the absolute best time, it was one year after the Suez Crisis that I joined up, and the two events (three if you count Cyprus) that I was involved in never came to too much.

In Cyprus we were making numbers up while waiting to go on to Jordan and neither Syria nor Iraq did what the powers that be thought they would. 

In Kuwait it’s possible the Marines and other units like us got there too quick. Years later it was to be totally different with the Falklands, Iraq and the dreaded Afghanistan. 

MAIDA BARRACKS

I joined the army on 8th Oct 1957, I was seventeen and a half years old, my mum said I wasn't allowed to be in Tanks because they was too dangerous, that was ok because I chose to try for the Parachute Regiment.

After arriving at Aldershot Station I was directed to Maida Barracks (which was the Airborne Forces Depot) by a uniformed SAS soldier, years later the SAS stopped walking around in uniform.

There were no National Service men, they were all volunteers, if you were called up and wanted to go into the Para’s you had to become a regular by signing on for an extra year making you a three year man.  My first platoon was 134 Training Platoon of about 35 to 40 recruits.

In the second week we went on the range to learn how to fire the Lee Enfield rifle .303 a bolt action, maybe vintage First World War 1914/18 or certainly second world war, which in 1957 had only been finished 12 years. After returning to the barracks we were shown how to clean the barrel of our rifles by pouring boiling water through it and then using a cloth called a 4x2 pulled through. I was a townie from inner city London and had never fired a gun of any sort before and cannot remember if I was told to oil the barrel after inspection, needless to say I didn’t and the result was a rusty barrel the next morning, when the CSM named Banks spotted it and the Major said “run him in" so I was doubled marched to jail.  Two hours later in front of the Company Major, my punishment was two weeks back squad.

At that time 1957 all the Officers of the Parachute Regiment came from other infantry regiments and the Major who back squadded me came from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, a Scots Regiment and he would walk around the barracks wearing all his Scots Regt gear, kilt and all, but wearing the Paras red beret, and he was a very large fellow.

So now my platoon was 135 Training Platoon, the problem was that I had been back squadded so fast my new platoon had not arrived, they were still in civvy street.

I remember well the day we met our new training Sergeant, Sgt Assentie. We were formed up outside our billet and he stood on some builders reinforcing mesh as he addressed us. He started by saying that he hoped we could understand his strong Scottish accent, and somebody piped up saying that he thought he was Italian, that did it, we all paid for that remark.

In the first two weeks of training quite a few people gave up and went back to civvy street. From then everyone who was left wanted to complete the course which at the time the Para’s basic training was 10 weeks including the P course which all Airborne soldiers have to complete and pass.  At that time all other infantry regiments training was just six weeks and that’s when they were posted to their battalions. Not too sure if this is fact mind you.

After the ten weeks in the Para's if you passed you went onto the jump school and then you had to do another 8 weeks Continuation Training before the battalions would accept you. I was over the moon to have passed that first 10 weeks, many did not. One lad, Terry from Hounslow (there were only three of us Londoners in the platoon) failed the course and he was one of the best in fitness but failed on aptitude. He begged to be allowed to do the whole 10 weeks again, he so much wanted to be a Para, anyway they made an exception and he did the whole 10 weeks again and he did pass the next time (not something I think I could have done again).

You could be failed at any time during the ten weeks, sometimes they didn’t even wait for the end of the day, you were sent to the office, informed that they had failed you, escorted back to the barrack room where your escort waited for you to pack, you were than taken to the stores to hand your army gear in and then paid up given a travel warrant to get you home and sent on your way. The rest of us would not be aware you had gone until later in the day.

The training was quite hard, when we started we would be doing short runs, no more than three miles every day, then some days it increased to five and then ten miles with a couple of twelve milers thrown in by the time we had finished. Terry from Hounslow would always be in the lead to the very end even beating the PTI’s, maybe they didn’t like getting beat, maybe that’s why he got failed the first 10 weeks.

During the ten and twelve mile runs the platoon got so spread out that those of us who were nearer the front could afford to have a crafty break, sort of ease up for a while even walk, as you had the lead PTIs making the pace while the other PTIs were towards the back encouraging the slower ones to pick the pace up.

There were three main events that all Airborne recruits have to complete during their training. One is the log race, there are if I remember right 8 of us to a log, four either side of the log holding it off the ground with toggle ropes and the other four would use their toggle ropes to pull it. Our platoon had maybe 3 logs, as our numbers had decreased quite a bit by now and we were up against another platoon.

Every permanent staff member back at the depot would want to be there on the log race day to watch the event, plus others from the Brigade and I suppose the senior people from the three battalions who at that time were all together in Aldershot. Let's call them spectators.

(Once 2 Para left for the Cyprus tour in January 59 the three Battalions were never together again for many years. I think I am right on this).

We were dressed in boots denim trousers red or white gym shirts and steel helmets. At a given shout off went the log teams first across grass then sand, or was it mud which I understand was part of the tank tracks, and that dragged the speed from you. Then you reached the hill, now the hill was like the Roman times with Gladiators being urged on by all these spectator people, no they weren’t people, they were sadists, who had come out to shout and watch us suffer.

Going up the very steep hill pulling on the rope my helmet would be touching the shingle stone (later I would see that I had taken off some of the green camouflage paint at the front of the helmet where it had dragged the ground) once we got to the top of the hill we had to run across the flattest top part of the hill and then down the other side, we had been warned to control the log on the way down as it was likely to gather momentum and pull us all down the hill, we did not heed this advice and set off down the hill at a pace and the log began to do its thing but we managed to hold on and arrived at the bottom of the hill in second place.

Now we had to make the run back to the trucks and our log took the lead and finished first. This we knew would please Sergeant Assentie and he showed it to the Officers and other sergeants who were there that day. All our logs did well and Assentie said that to prove it was no fluke his platoon would not ride back in the trucks provided, but would run the three miles back, which we did. He didn’t though, no he went back in the truck leaving the platoon corporal to run us back.

Every night after the evening meal we had to spend our time cleaning our kit, polishing our boots and at 8pm Assenti would come around to inspect our kit. If it passed his critical eye those who had, could go to the NAAFI and if it wasn’t perfect we had to carry on until it was. He would come back sometime after 9 to inspect again, and maybe some more would be passed and allowed out. 

Assenti was a proper drill sergeant. Every morning all the platoons would march off down to the very large Square where they all spent the first hour learning to march. Assenti’s pet was that we should crack our heels in as we marched and would keep at it until eventually we did all crack our heels down at exactly the same time so that all of us sounded as if it was just one very sharp crack and when we achieved that he was over the moon with joy.

All the platoon billet buildings were lined up one behind the other going up the hill away from the square like side on dominos, and when the platoons lined up each morning outside their respective billets each platoon would be between the buildings and so were not in sight of each other until we all marched out turned right and went off down the road towards the square.

Our Sergeant was now convinced we were the best at marching and set out to prove it to every other platoon, there were at least two platoons senior to us at this stage of our training and he had us lined up at the slope arms facing left just waiting for the order quick march. We were the furthest from the square and he had the platoon corporal watching out for when the nearest two platoons were getting ready to go and Assenti set us off making sure we cracked our heels in and he had us marching at a quicker speed. As the next platoon were coming out we were passing them and our crack crack at the slightly faster pace soon upset their marching and they all lost their step Assenti was really pleased with that and soon we were closing up on the next platoon and a repeat performance mucked them up too.

The assault course was a bit of a bastard, my first time we were walked around the course and then lined up for the start and off we all went, about ¾ of the way round the second lap I was as sick as a dog and stopped to spew up, and then carried on to the end, the PTIs then had a go at me and because of me the whole platoon had to go round again. I was sick again at other times in my army time but never stopped again.

RAF ABINGDON and CULHAM

My Platoon 135 lost quite a lot of recruits over the first 8 weeks of the 10 weeks and so did my previous platoon 134 so we were amalgamated into one platoon, I was one of the lucky ones who passed the 10 week course and after a Christmas leave went on up to the Jump school which at the time was at RAF Abingdon.

Apart from the Nissen hut billet at Culham, the first two weeks being looked after and trained by the RAF was great, good food and not being shouted at all the time, sometimes yes but not all the time, and we walked to the dining room, not marched or run. The second two weeks we were moved onto the aerodrome, sheer luxury now.

There was one of our number named Parker who completed the first 7 Training Jumps and then announced that he would not be doing the final 8th jump, as that would mean he would have qualified and that would face Court Marshall if he refused to jump after that point, and he did not want to stay with the Paras, but had proved to himself he could do all the Para course and the jumps. He was removed away from us at once ( I met Parker some time later in Cyprus).

After completing the parachute course we went back to Maida Barracks and carried on with our training. So in my case I arrived at Maida Barracks on October 8th 1957 and was posted to 2 Para in Talavere Barracks in April the next year, which was 6 months later. For 6 months I had been shouted at, and run or marched everywhere and for the first 8 weeks in my case we were not even allowed out of the barracks for leisure, I think after that we could go out on Saturday night only into Town, so I thought that going to a battalion would be the end of all that, I was wrong.

TALAVERA BARRACKS and ANDOVER MARCH

Talavera Barracks was a depressing place, and it seemed that going to 2 Para was not a good move, for a start Talavera was two blocks of three stories with a road down the middle leading from the main road, Queens Road I think it was called, and just a few yards, maybe 100 yds from the main traffic lights. All the ground floor rooms on both sides were offices of the three rifle companies A B & C, plus Support Company and Battalion HQ, plus all of the Arms Kote’s I think.

The first and second floors of the blocks were accessed by an external cast iron staircase to both ends of the balcony corridors or landings I think they were called at the time. Our platoon dormitory was off one of these landings and as soon as you stepped outside your door you were in full view of all the people by the offices who were looking for someone to shout at.

It was a depressing place, with rotten people in charge and I thought I had made a big mistake in coming here. It was no better than Recruit Company at Maida. I joined  A Company and this company had a reputation for long distance marching in full battle order. They had recently marched from Oakhampton in Devon back to Aldershot a distance I was told of two hundred miles, so the next march to them, not to me, was a doddle at just 40 miles from Andover to Aldershot.

We did our normal days training, then after the evening meal we were taken to a RAF airfield to board our aircraft, a Hastings for a night jump somewhere, and from the DZ we were taken by truck towards Andover and there we began to march.

We marched in what was known as ACK ACK  formation which is platoon sections either side of the road walking in the gutter, when we reached the outskirts of Basingstoke we did not continue in a straight line through the town but went around it. The longest way!!

Arriving outside Aldershot at about 2pm we then were formed up into 3 ranks and at the slope arms we marched into Aldershot, There seemed to be many people out to watch us come back.

We came onto the square and were dismissed back to our billets, most of us just put our rifles on the bed and for security laid on them, which is what we did at the time, and fell asleep, 33 hours, one night jump and 40 Marching miles later.

When I woke up many hours later I noticed that most of us had had our boots and socks removed and the blisters on our feet had been seen to by the medics (Was the Major “A” Coy Twink Morton I do not know now).

CYPRUS and JORDAN

In June 1958 2 Para flew off to Cyprus which at that time had the EOKA Terrorists causing mayhem. I for some reason was told that at 18 years and 2 months I was not old enough to go so I was a Batman, that’s an officers flunkey for three weeks and then suddenly I was old enough and so I along with others, some just out of training went to Cyprus in a Blackburn Beverly the slowest plane around, most cars these days can do the speed what they could do.

It took us two days to get there, the first hop was to the south of France, and the next was to Malta where we were billeted for the night. The next day we took off and landed at RAF El Adem in Libya, North Africa then from there to RAF Nicosia Cyprus.

Once I had found my way to where A Company 2 Para was, they were about to go on to Jordon so I said I won’t bother to unpack but they told the little group I was with that we had to stay in Cyprus to get acclimatised to the heat, well it was June so that’s where we stayed and that was the first time that I carried a loaded weapon in the streets. We did a couple of patrols in some nearby villages, if they were Greek Cypriot ones you had to keep very alert, the Greeks did not like us very much. The Turkish Cypriot villages were much better; they seemed to want us to stay around.

We went onto Jordan to look after King Hussein, who’s Cousin King Feisal of Iraq had just been overthrown and killed.

When we arrived at Amman, 2 Para’s place, some of the group were put with the other Company’s. Johnny Leek and I were A Company and they were not in Amman.  "A" Company were down in Jordan’s only port, Aquba. So we flew down there in a twin engine Valletta.

Johnny Leek copped gate duties on his first night. We were told to dig a couple of DTL these are deep trench latrines, a hole in the ground about 6 feet deep by 10 foot long by 4 foot wide. Then we were told to fill them in again, that’s how 2 Para were at the time, shit ideas, just to keep you busy.

Some nights I was part of the guard in the port, stationed on the NAAFI barge which had all the beer and fags on and that's what we were guarding. Other barges were Jordanian army and Jordanian navy, with their own people guarding their own goods, in other words we were all guarding our barges from each other. We did in fact lower a case of beer into the harbour in a net each night so we could sample the quality of the beer once it had cooled.

We were allowed to go for a swim in the Gulf of Aqaba part of the Red Sea when off duty provided a guard was arranged to watch over our own weapons and clothes while in the water. I could not swim that good and was persuaded to try to swim out and around a scaffold tower that stood about two hundred yards out in the sea. Two of my mates agreed they would swim alongside me in case I got in to trouble.  All went well; I went around the tower and headed back towards the beach when an Arab legion bloke caught hold of me under my armpit which made my head go under water. I panicked and struggled against his hold and I had no option but to whack him one to make him let go of me. He went off in a huff, I found I was in shallow enough water to stand up. My mates then had a go at me for whacking the Arab as he was trying to help me to my feet, but instead was holding me under water.

While we were down at Aquba we heard that one of 2 Paras group out on a desert swan, had crossed into Saudi Arabia by mistake, well we were told it was a mistake, and been arrested or held at least. This sort of activity I was to learn, was that's what Para's do, go off and look over next doors wall to see what was there, at times in the future I would be on some similar  types of desert swans. We were relieved by another company so we returned to Amman.

Back up in Amman we took over OP duties. My section, about eight strong, was put on a hill overlooking Amman Airport although our mission was to look the other way across the desert. We took over from a section of another rifle company in the evening possibly say 5pm then settled down to doing our stags, shifts, in the stone basher facing the desert.

Our HQ basher was just around the corner of the huge pile of stones on top of this hill. The next day we explored our new home, it had a small stone basher about 3 feet square which was our kitchen; there was a large pillbox type construction which you entered from the top through a hatch opening, and the room inside was maybe 12 feet x 8 feet so it was quite big.  The view through the slit looking down the hill covered the part of the hill which was the only possible way up from that direction.

And then we discovered that the pile of stones on top of this hill was in fact an ancient burial ground. We had slept well the first night on the hill, the second night knowing that we were sleeping in a graveyard was a totally different type of night. Paras can be brave, but not these ones it seems.

Nobody wanted to sit out in the stone basher OP. a quick walk round would do and then back into a the main basher where we all slept in our sleeping bags, yes we did use sleeping bags, Jordan was very cold at nights, and that is in July, August, Sept etc instead of doing 2 hours stag in pairs it was decided that each would do 1 hour.

Anyway about 10pm those of us not on stag got into our sleeping bags

The first person on duty managed to keep most of us awake by asking questions for the whole of his hour, then it was Taffy's turn, well he hadn't managed to get any sleep and after a quick turn round the hill came back in before we had got to sleep, and so he continued to keep most of us awake.

Then the field telephone rang. Taffy answered it. It was the Adjutant on the phone and to us the conversation went something like this:

Taffy “You want me to look for some flaws,”

Pause whilst captain speaks…

Taffy “Yes I understand flaws, I will look for them in the morning when it gets light.”

Now people coming from different parts of the British Isles in 1958 were not always understood like they are years later. Taffy had thought the Captain had said flaws, he assumed the captain meant flaws in the telephone wire, when in fact he was asking Taffy, who he thought would be in the OP outside looking out across the darkened desert “Could he see any flares”, and Taffy had told him he would look when it got light!!

One morning when it did get light just 300 yards away on the other side of the coiled barbed wire a Bedouin encampment had taken up residence overnight, and we never heard a thing, too busy talking in trying to keep all the others awake instead of looking and listening over the desert that night

One day some of us were trapped in the pill box/bunker when for a joke someone had sealed the overhead exit with a pile of sand bags, clever sods that we were we used our bayonets to split open the sand bags allowing the sand to fall onto the floor of the pillbox, and getting choked by the dusty sand in the process.

Another near highlight was when somebody on the side of the hill overlooking the airport shouted what we thought, that a 4 engine civilian plane was landing, which was rare to see as all them had been kept away because of the situation, as we ran to the top of the hill a whirlwind came over at the same time and knocked us flying, and then it went through our little stone kitchen scattering our food. The shout was not about a plane but to warn us that a whirlwind was coming.

There was another time when I got it wrong. We were on an OP facing north outside Amman that’s the way they thought the Syrians would come taking advantage of the recent problems in Iraq, they didn’t come through, but I thought they had.

There I was sitting with Gonifas a Rhodesian who had been telling me about when he was at Suez nearly two years before, when looking forward across the barren dusty shallow valley, with my Binoculars I saw an armoured scout car.

All Jordanian armoured vehicles had been moved away from Amman at the time so it should not have been there. I told Gonifas who after looking himself, said it was, so we telephoned back over the hill and our Platoon Officer came running back with his group. We pointed out the scout car, it was a bit hazy like most deserts are but he immediately radio for assistance and out from behind us tearing along the road were the Land Rover anti-tank wombats, a long barrelled gun that was full length of the land rover. When they got close to the scout car they saw that it was in fact a builders dumper truck. Well it looked like a scout car in the haze. By me saying it was an armoured scout car when Gonifas then the platoon Lieutenant looked they were looking for a scout car.   

Back at the tented camp in Amman we would watch as the RAF Hawker Hunters would come over to beat us up, flying low on their sides, and they used to fly so low that it seemed as if their wing tips went between the blocks of flats which were our Company offices.

So then the Jordanian Air Force wanted to do something similar only it wasn’t their Meteor Jets they used it was their helicopter’s which just kicked up so much dust from the ground that we started to throw rocks at them,

It came out on the orders, the army notice board,

            PERSONNEL WILL NOT THROW ROCKS AT LOW FLYING AIRCRAFT

That has got to be a first, 40 years before Bruce Willis tried it, or was it Rambo?!  I remember that the RAF squadron was 208 because that is what at the time Radio Luxembourg use to broadcast on. And apparently this particular squadron had just finished its tour as the RAF aerobatic team known as the Black Arrows.

HOME to BLIGHTY

We came home to England in the November, stopping over at Cyprus on the way for a few days. I think this was the period of time that “A” Coy had a new CSM Company Sergeant Major who had the nickname Bamboo. Apparently he had been a prisoner of war with the Japanese and had suffered with them. One of his problems was his back, he seemed to be leaning back all the time hence the name Bamboo. His other problem was his speech, he was very hard to understand, so he decided that to get use to his voice he would take us on the parade ground. The trouble was that the parade ground was right on the front facing the town centre, and it had a small 4 feet high fence separating the parade ground from the public pavement. And on that pavement was a bus stop with a queue of people waiting to catch their bus to work. They watched us march onto the square, we were the cabaret, and they were the audience. There we were formed up in columns of three I think it was called, and Bamboo shouted quick march so off we went, in the middle of the square marching parallel to the pavement. I was in the third row back from the front and as we were getting closer to the end of the parade ground I noticed that there was no one behind my row of three, we were on our own. I told the others and we sort of shuffled to a stop and looked round.

Bamboo must have shouted something which we at the front did not hear, everyone else heard different, because the back group had done an about turn and were at the other end of the square, some had thought that he said right turn and the rest thought left turn so we were at all sides. Our audience at the bus stop were laughing their heads off, some holding onto the low railings for support. We never got invited again, in fact it may have been more than 3 years before we did any serious square bashing again    

TROOP SHIP DUNERA

We were the first Para Battalion to do a tour of duty abroad in a long while, normally the battalions would be at home and just get taken off to somewhere like Suez or Jordan do what had to be done and go home again.  Cyprus was our destination and we left Southampton on the troopship Dunera in January 1959. We had returned from Jordan just a couple of months earlier.

My mums second husband Bill had served with the Eighth Army in North Africa during the war and advised me that on the troopship I should keep eating because if I was seasick it was better to have something to be sick with.

On board we were issued with a coloured plastic disc which entitled us to the next meal, which once handed in were then issued with another colour disc.

Within a day’s sailing some people suffered with the seasick and asked me to take their disc and change it for the next colour, which I did, then others asked the same for the meal after that so that by the time we reached Gibraltar, I had so many coloured disc I could go to every meal as many times as I wanted.

Life on board was not too bad, when we started off they asked for volunteers to wash the decks down and other such task, and whoever did agree would be excused watch duties. I was told by Bill not to volunteer and I pulled just one watch/stag, and that was standing in the corridor where the married women were billeted and they would flit from cabin to cabin to have a natter with another wife in their nighties, and I, an 18 year old had to watch all this for two hours, did I break a tradition and volunteer to do an extra watch, No. The queue to volunteer for this duty now was too long.

We did some live firing off the back of the ship and a session or two of unarmed combat where Sgt “Dinger” Bell nearly strangled me as I could not get him to release his grip on my throat.   

On arrival in Cyprus we came ashore at Limassol by small lighter boats and were transported to a tented camp in Nicosia, there was a ceasefire declared, maybe they, EOKA, the terrorist group there had heard we were coming back and didn’t want to be bombarded with rocks and flaws!

HELICOPTER SEA RESCUE TRAINING

One day on the notice board there was a letter asking for volunteers for wind winching, which the group reading it at the time had no idea what wind winching was, so it was up to me to find out, so into the Company Office Tent I went to ask and they didn't know either all they could tell me that it was something to do with the RAF.

Well you always get well treated with the RAF and so I put my name down and went out and told the others who all rushed in to put their names down.

There were six of us that on the day were taken up to RAF Nicosia, which is the same place as the international airport where we transferred to a RAF three tonner with two RAF blokes and we set off for Larnaca on the south coast.

At the port the six of us were directed to climb aboard this Air Sea Rescue boat of about 80 to 100 feet in length and which had a crew of two, a flight sergeant and a corporal and the boat set off out of the harbour. At this point still did not know what wind winching was.

Asking the crew what we were doing on this super quick boat, they laughed and told us that we were to be cast adrift one by one in a small one man inflatable, which he pointed to on top of the cabin, and then be picked up by helicopter.

We were dressed in these orange Michelin tyre man type suits which had air put in to inflate and also a life jacket. We were also instructed in how to pull the loop which the helicopter lowers over our heads and under the arms, apparently do it wrong and the winch jams and you could end up dangling beneath the chopper and not able to get aboard and have to be taken ashore like that.

With Cyprus just about out of sight, the first of us was put over the side into the dinghy and cast off; our boat drove off a few hundred yards and circled the castaway.

We saw the helicopter come out and the loop lowered and after a bit of time the castaway managed to get the loop and was hauled up into the chopper which set off back to Cyprus.

Our boat closed on the discarded dinghy and the second man got in, and the whole thing was repeated. Me, not being a proper swimmer let the others go before me as there was always the chance that the pilots would be satisfied with 5 rescues and would not require my services. Wrong.

I always did try to get to the back of sticks in the planes on the same reasoning, maybe they would be happy with just maybe twenty jumping out of the plane and so I would be told to stop and not jump, never did happen though.

One chap (Jock Nichols I think his name was), got the loop on wrong and so with the winch jammed was taken back hanging underneath the Helicopter .

Now came the last one, me, the helicopter has disappeared back over the horizon with No 5 and I am put into the dinghy. The crew asked that when I get winched up, would I take the dinghy up with me as they were off now back to harbour. OK I suppose and off went the boat.

By now Cyprus was out of sight and soon there was nothing to see but sea and sky.

I bobbed about out there for ages, wondering where the Helicopter had got to, did he know there were six people and not five, and now there was no boat nearby to direct him would he know where I was, all these thoughts were trundling around in my head. I did not even know which way to paddle with my hands. If it’s mid-afternoon and the sun is there, where would be Cyprus? Which way should I paddle?

Eventually I saw the chopper and it was not coming towards me, it was way over, going right to left, I began to wave my orange Michelin arms and then it turned towards me.

As it approached, the down blast from his blades was flattening the sea in a wide circle, the edge of the circle was where the tidal wave was and as that reached the dinghy I took off being propelled along, the loop was swinging towards me and then away again, I tried many times to grab at it each time, nearly tipping the dinghy over in the process. At last I caught hold of it and quickly put it on. The winch man was shouting something but I just clung on to the line above the loop.

I was hauled up and the winch man said “What about the Dinghy" I said “x#*/”~# the dinghy get me on board”, which he did, then he went down on the winch with the pilot operating the winch to collect it.

I was dropped off back at the beach with the others where the RAF truck was and they were cooking egg sarnies and there was a choice of drink, Whiskey, Rum, and some beer

We sat there chatting for about an hour when the RAF lads began to pack ready to go back. We asked what happens to the booze and they said what is not drunk is taken back. That was a shame, it was still the time of the emergency, where we travelled around armed so we had to go back on the truck.