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Big ray


Big ray

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I have just received a xmas card from one of my army buddies (1950s) he says that I am not so much his friend, but more of a brother, how nice, its taken him nearly 60 years to realize what I have always known. I just wish that we could meet up more often..... the years are passing too quickly, you would think that time would slow down in retirement, but not so. I have to collect my medication monthly, and I cant believe how quickly the months are passing by... and I only sleep about 4 hours per night........ dont take being young for granted, its only a temporary state of affairs, its only the introduction to old age........ Now, have I put the back door out and locked the cat??

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time goes to fast as you get older can remember last xmas eve driving over north york moors to whitby for christmas and it snowed like mad the mountain rescue closed the road everyone was stranded good job i was in my little suzuki jimny with wife and toddler it got us off the moors safely and in our warm christmas cottage , seems like yesterday and not nearly a year ago ! :shocked:

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We have to do things a little differently when we retire. The 70 year old man walked into the jeweliers with a 22 year old beautiful blonde on his arm. he asked the jewelier to show them some diamond rings, the shop keeper produced a tray of rings and exclaimed, I am afraid that these are £4.000 each. The customer exclaimed, goodness me, no , I would like something more expensive than that. The jewelier produced another tray of rings saying, these sir are £40,000 each, the old gentleman felt a tightening of the grip on his arm and a shudder of delight from the young lady..... thats the one he declared, we will have that one. And how will sir be paying, I will pay by cheque, but I realize that you will want to clear the cheque on Monday morning, and we will collect the ring on Monday afternoon. The pensioner was relating this story to his very good friend on the Monday morning...... his friend exclaimed, you have very little money in the bank, you will not be able to honour that cheque...... I know, exclaimed the pensioner....... but I have had a fantastic week-end!!!!!!!

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We have to do things a little differently when we retire. The 70 year old man walked into the jeweliers with a 22 year old beautiful blonde on his arm. he asked the jewelier to show them some diamond rings, the shop keeper produced a tray of rings and exclaimed, I am afraid that these are £4.000 each. The customer exclaimed, goodness me, no , I would like something more expensive than that. The jewelier produced another tray of rings saying, these sir are £40,000 each, the old gentleman felt a tightening of the grip on his arm and a shudder of delight from the young lady..... thats the one he declared, we will have that one. And how will sir be paying, I will pay by cheque, but I realize that you will want to clear the cheque on Monday morning, and we will collect the ring on Monday afternoon. The pensioner was relating this story to his very good friend on the Monday morning...... his friend exclaimed, you have very little money in the bank, you will not be able to honour that cheque...... I know, exclaimed the pensioner....... but I have had a fantastic week-end!!!!!!!

 

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

If only I could find the blonde ........ or the brunette:cool2:

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  • 2 weeks later...

In an army full of conscripts in the 1950s it was common practice to allow none licensed (Military) drivers to get behind the wheel and have a cabbie (Cab happy) these people were competent civilian licensed drivers, who had been sidelined into some job such as pen pushing, so the risk was always minimal, unless caught doing it, then you would be in real trouble. On one occasion (Its almost 60 years ago now, so I dont think that they will bother with me) I was accompanied by a guy who worked in the admin offices and we travelled to Munster, some thirty miles away from our base. It was during the winter, although driving conditions did seem to be good. On the return leg he begged of me to let him have a spell behind the wheel, I was reluctent, but eventually relented and allowed him behind the wheel. He had been driving trucks prior to his service, so I felt that there was very little risk ( I have to mention at this point that driving conditions, speed and volume of traffic was considerably less in them days) Once he pulled away I was relaxed to see that he handled the truck very competently. The roads in the 1950s were very much country type roads, full of twists and bends. After a few miles, by which time I was feeling very comfortable, we approached one of the many bends, when suddenly a large Mercedes saloon car came around the bend broadside, the road at this point was icey and the car driver had lost control. My heart shot into my mouth and I felt sure that my friend would lose control and result in a collision... I could not have been more wrong, my friend stayed as cool as a cucumber, applied the brakes gently and both vehicles stopped a few feet apart, with the German driver gazing up at us and still chompping on a very large cigar. I was not only relieved, but also very impressed with my friends very cool handling of what could have been a very nasty outcome............. it was however the only time that I ever succumbed to that request again, I had been very lucky.

REME 56 58 006.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

I have been watching the recent T.V. series of Land Army Girls, as much as I have enjoyed watching it I cant help but feel that its been pretty well sanitized for general viewing. My recollections of local farms in the 1940s and 50s, of which I visited several, was not of pristine, clean and idylic places, but rather messy, smelly and lacking in mod cons. It must have been extremely long hours performing harduous unfamiliar tasks and a particular challenge maintaining personal hygiene with such poor facilities.

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I wrote considerably more in my last post, but for some reason it has not appeared......... dont know why, and my computer skills are pretty naff......... probably just answered my own question. So please dont take anything out of context, I did go on to explain in some detail.

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You're definitely correct Ray, the work was grindingly hard and in a lot of farms no running water or electricity. Mains water didn't arrive on the family farm until the late nineties although the mains had come within reasonable distance in the early seventies, mains electricity arrived early in the sixties.

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You're definitely correct Ray, the work was grindingly hard and in a lot of farms no running water or electricity. Mains water didn't arrive on the family farm until the late nineties although the mains had come within reasonable distance in the early seventies, mains electricity arrived early in the sixties.

 

Thanks for your post, I had gone on to say what a demanding, hard and vital task that the farmers and their co-workers had to contend with at that time in our history.......... I was just afraid that with my post being cut short, someone might have thought that it was a slight on farms and farmers....... and it certainly was not. I have every admiration for farmers and all that they do for this country.

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  • 4 weeks later...

We celebrated our 52nd re-union last October in Redditch. One of our group who I have refered to in the past, and his perpensity to get lost when out in a truck during our time in Germany (1956 / 58). He actually went on to drive all over Europe, including Scandinavia, I have to say that we were all amazed, but then we could have no idea how many times that he might have gotten lost. I spoke with him a few weeks before our re-union and he asked would I meet up with him on route and lead him into Redditch and our hotel. I met up with him as arranged and I drove quite slowly in order that he could keep up, however by now I had two of our group following me, and he had gotten into third place in the line. It was not long before I realized that I had lost him, so I stopped to give him time to catch up, but he never did. We drove on to the hotel and waited, prepared to go out and find him if nesessary, after a while he turned up, but he had found the hotel quite by chance. I decided that when we left to go home I would have him positioned immediately behind me so that I could keep an eye on him. I told him before we left that I would escort him to the junction on the M42 where he would go right whilst I would go left. I gesticulated to him to go right at the junction waved goodbye, he promptly turned left and followed me. I pulled onto the first service area and instructed him to turn around...... so 50 odd years on and nothing seems to have changed. I have told him that I will pick them up next re-union.

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I was asked by my army buddies to write an article for a military magazine about six or eight months ago. The article concerned my induction into the corps in 1956 and my subsiquent service and the formation of my life long association with my buddies. I submitted the article and it was accepted for publication, and duly published in the February issue (last month). I have been pole-axed at the immediate responses that I am receiving from the guys that I served with almost 60 years ago, and have had no contact in all t E-mails are flying back and forth like there is no tommorrow, and the incredible thing that comes across is the fact that these guys recall events like they happened yesterday. I cant remember what happened yesterday.... but stuff 50 odd years ago seems like yesterday.

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We some times do silly things when we are young men. We had a guy posted into our workshops directly from a spell of prison service in Bielefeld Military Prison. He was not a REME guy, but one of the Ordnance Corps people attached to us.

He had been sent to the "Glass House" for fighting, he was a Liverpudlian, not that that matters, thats just geography.

He was about the same size as myself, but with a pair of hands like No.10 shovels. Anyway I will cut to the chase, I am, and never have been a violent man, I would rather kiss somebody than hit them any day (preferably female). I used the NAAFI on a regular basis, thats where all of my buddies were. This guy challenged me one night and said that I should be in the corporals club, it all became rather confrontational and he said that if I had not been an NCO he would have knocked nine bells out of me.... well even with a placid nature like mine, I could not appear to be intimidated. So I challenged him to a fight early (7.00am) the following morning. He replied, no, NOW. We settled on the next morning. One of my room buddies was awake at 5.30am each morning doing his press-ups, I would watch him occasionally with one eye open. I asked him to awaken me at 5.30am, he did, and I dashed into the washroom, splashed down with cold water and dashed up onto the next floor to his room. His bed was the first on the left when you entered the room. I dragged the sheets off of him and said, come on sunshine, we have got an appointment this morning. Not surprisingly he did not want to have anything to do with me he was very groggy. I said dont ever threaten me again, and he never did.... but what he does not know is that I nearly had to change my underpants...... fortunately for me my psycologyworked on that occasion, but I was very lucky........ he would have murdered me.

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  • 1 month later...

I have just joined the local branch of the REME association, all the result of me writing an article for the CRAFTSMAN MAGAZINE, thats REME`s own monthly publication. The local area secretary contacted me and invited me to join. Coupled to that I have had one of our buddies who we have not seen for over fifty years make contact with me, first by letter and now we are in regular contact by e-mail. We are all hoping that he will meet up with us at our next reunion.

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I made my second visit to the REME association monthly meeting last night, I got the start time wrong, I was thirty minutes late so missed most of the meeting. I made my appologies and sat down just as the invited speaker stood up to give a talk, then realised that I had left my mobile phone switched on. I was expecting a call from our son Tony, I had left him having to collect a truck from the workshops and expected him to call for some help getting things sorted. I could not turn off my phone because it makes a real racket when you turn it on or off, so I sat thinking that my phone may ring and that would require another appology within the space of about 15 minutes... a very inauspicious start to my evening as a new member.

Luckily my phone did not ring, but I`m blowed if I can remember much of what the guy had to say!!!!

After the talk I spent most of the evening talking with the Branch Padre, I found him to be an extremely nice guy, and I thought that at 75 years old (me) I had better get well in with the Padre, he might put in a good word for me. I am looking forward to the next monthly meeting when I hope to be on Time.

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