As a single soldier in barracks in BAOR in 1951 I can remember getting a round tin containing 50 cigarettes, always Woodbines, imagine my surprise one day when it contained Players. As I have never smoked I always gave them away, or if close to leave save a couple of tins for my Mum.

Len (Ciphers)

I remember getting German ciggies out of those vending machines (and a few other things out of vending machines, but that's a whole other thread!! LOL..I ain't talkin' sandwiches either).

The thing about German cigs was their use of Turkish tobacco, foul stuff or North African crap maybe...just as bad.

As I think of it, yeah Embassy's weren't so bad, all in all.

What scared me was after a year of being back in Germany working and not having access to Canadian or Brit cigs, I started to quite enjoy German ones!! I didn't smoke much back then as I wouldn't smoke on the job site (10 hours a day) and wouldn't smoke in the house, so that only left when I was out on an evening (sure, it was every night, but only for a few hours).

I remember when I first joined up we got a tin of 50 cigarettes in each compo pack,but then they seemed to "disappear"out of the packs.Rumour was that they were used to suppliment the cookhouse with fresh vedge on the "black" from the local farms?
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Don

When I was a young smoker, minus a ration card, I used to buy German ciggies from vending machines, Lords or Camel I seem to recall. Both must have been made from Camel shit and bus tickets from the smell at least and as you inhaled one the lit end hurled itself towards your mouth at great knotts.

I once had a temp job in a factory in Hemer (? I think) that made "chocolate marsh mellows" Actually they were called "Nxxxer Kusse" totally non PC they wouldn't get away with it today (quite right). Anyway the supervisor was always on at the brit girls to get her cheaps fags from the Naafi - not sure who did supply her but she always had a B&H in her mouth and it was the always the same wenches that got the overtime.

Graham question for you - in Bingo terms what sort of game was a "NAAFI Sandwich"? Took my mum once to the Hemer School Hall on a Bingo night and my mum won 4 out 10 houses plus the main raffle prize - I thought we were going to get lynched on the way home.

Top Line, Bottom Line and nothing in the middle ..

Len (Ciphers)

Got a chuckle out of the Bingo "Naafi Sandwich" being Top line, bottom line and nothing in the middle....very clever!

And that puts me in mind of some Canadian vs British idiocyncrasies:

When I was back working in Soest, I befriended a British family through my German best friend, Yvonne and Brian and their two little boys who lived in Married Quarters above the ambulance office, kitty-corner from what was by then the Belgique school (formerly the Canadian High School)....

Yvonne was a very large woman...massive, actually...and very fond of what she called Chip Butties (actually, "Chip Boo'ies", given her broad accent). Broadcut potatoes, dripping in oil and fat, laid on a slab of white NAAFI bread spread with margarine (never butter!) and sometimes liberally sprinkled with salt. I can hear my arteries clogging up just remembering those things, but man oh man were they delicious!

Another family who befriended me -- adopted me actually (the Ivory family) -- insisted I come over every day for "tea."

Tea, of course, was their evening meal, not unlike a Canadian supper or dinner, but with a heavier emphasis on meats and sweets. It was always quite substantial and a damn sight better than anything I could whip up on my 2-burner hot plate in my bedsitter a few blocks from the Married Quarters.

(plus, at 20 years of age I couldn't really cook anyway and when I did try to fry up some steaks, wasn't patient enough to let them simmer,choosing instead to crank up the heat and basically flash cook them, with the resulting billows of dark smoke filling my kitchen and rolling out the now wide-open windows! LOL My cooking skills have not improved much in the ensuing 30+ years)

Cooking is an art,either you can,and if you can't do leave it to someone else.Now I was quite good with the compo and a No 2 cooker,once I tried to liven up the Irish stew with some Pfifferlings I found in our nearby forest,the boys thought I was out to poisen them and no one would touch my work of art.One of them came to me some time later and said he'd been out to dinner and had eaten venison,and guess with what - yes -Pfifferlings - were they delicious!!!But collecting forest mushrooms is not for you if you are not clued up,in Sept/Oct when the collectors are out,then the hospitals start to fill up,and the morturies too!
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Don

I quite agree....I have long since abdicated whatever role I may have played in the kitchen to a partner who is a far better cook than I. I'm barely allowed to set foot in the place LOL Suits me fine....

Pfifferlings...oh, while wild mushrooms are delicious (and far tastier than the bland things one buys in supermarkets), I was always leery of them. I can't really tell the difference between a "mushroom" and a "toadstool" let alone between a "good" mushroom and a poisonous one.

I figure the red capped ones with little white dots on them are best left for forest fairies and elves and such to perch upon and are not for humans. Ditto for the rest