No names no pack drill

Shelldrake wrote:

Looks like it Tony. You've probably got your LS & GC as well I expect.

I got my "Rooti Gong" for 18 years of Undetected Crime. I always thought you had to have 22 years in, so was quite surprised when Tara told me I was getting it.
I understand the qualifying period is even shorter now.

brum

I thought 15 years service were needed.I had an exemplary grading and didn`t get it.Mind you i didn`t bother to apply for it.It`s on MY. list of unapproved medals next to commemorative and ths so called National Defence Medal which is being bandied around at the moment.

ROPs=== Restriction of priviledges..Replaced CB in the early 60s.No wonder you got the LS&GC,,They didn`t know where you were

Teabag wrote:

Shelldrake wrote:

In those days I smoked Kensitas which, if you remember, came with Coupons, 10 in a packet of 20. I built up quite a collection over 5 years (200 fags per week) and when I was posted back to the UK I redeemed them for a Magazine Rack - that's what you call a freebie!!

I just kept mine on my SLR or SMG with spares in pouches.

Wonder if squaddies are still hardened smokers these days? Virtually everyone did when I was in.

"Magazine Rack" . . . I think that one went over their heads mate !

Gordon. wrote:

ROPs=== Restrictoion of privledges

Ach so !

Thanks for that, we just called them "Restrictions"

brum wrote:

Teabag wrote:

Shelldrake wrote:

In those days I smoked Kensitas which, if you remember, came with Coupons, 10 in a packet of 20. I built up quite a collection over 5 years (200 fags per week) and when I was posted back to the UK I redeemed them for a Magazine Rack - that's what you call a freebie!!

I just kept mine on my SLR or SMG with spares in pouches.

Wonder if squaddies are still hardened smokers these days? Virtually everyone did when I was in.

"Magazine Rack" . . . I think that one went over their heads mate !

Well you got it eventually and you are pretty old. Fancy not knowing what ROP's where. Anyway it is all very well restricting them but what privelages did we get?

I always wondered why Sailors were issued with ciggies, yet we had to buy them?

Priveliges - going home to an MQ or barrack block, knocking off at 5pm and not having to stand behind the guard at 10 pm, weekends off etc...

Re using the grey market (not quite a black market!).

The most identifiable Canadian cigarette in the 60s and 70s were Export 'A' and a lot of us smoked them (can't bear them now, although I still smoke!). Inevitably, some local would strike up a conversation upon spying the Export 'A', offer one of his for you to try so of course you'd offer one of yours. German cigs were atrocious....most of them made from Turkish tobacco rather than Virginian tobacco like ours and stank to high heaven. But it was all good connubial fun.

It was not unusual at all for Canadian families to gift German friends with cigarettes and Canadian booze. One of the more popular gifts (and I have another anecdote about that, in a second) were those huge bottles of Asbach Urault brandy we could get for next to nothing at MLS or, later, CANEX or....hmmmm....huge bottles of some Canadian brandy the name of which escapes me! (Hardrations....help me out here!!!). Crown Royal was popular too.

The other anecdote: Shortly after the war, when the Marshall Plan was kicking in, and North Americans were sending over relief packages to the German civilians, apparently there was bit of a kerfuffle since so many of the packages' declaration slips had "gift" written in in order to avoid excessive import taxes. The Germans refused to touch the stuff and were quite upset that Canadians and Americans were sending them poison! "Gift" being Deutsch for "poison".

I used to bring several small boxes of Red Rose tea and some brandy to Frau Elizabeth, who many of you may remember as the rolly-polly little old lady who used to work the canteen at the Sally Ann, when I would visit her during my 14 months back in Soest working. And the odd carton of Embassy cigarettes, although she didn't smoke....she'd sell them or use them as a sort of 'favour currency' for workmen or whatever. I never asked.

Canadian smokes ?

I used to love "Old Port" (and later, "King Edward") cigars.

About the only thing that would tempt me back to smoking, after 20-odd years !

I liked the odd King Edward at Christmas myself, but I always smoked Rothmans.

Hi Stephen,
Asbach brandy loved it. Only a few weeks ago I had a couple at our Caravan site. Ye realy good stuff.

Hr Brum,

Used to get them from NAAFI, take them back to the UK and sell tem for £25.

PS Hope customs aint on this site

Tony Miller wrote:

Hr Brum,

Used to get them from NAAFI, take them back to the UK and sell tem for £25.

PS Hope customs aint on this site

Er . . 'scuse me, did I just see the "C" word used ?

"Customs" that's an obscenity on a par with (sorry) "Traffic Warden".

Keep it clean lads, keep it clean !

Your right Brum sorry

LOL

I know |I've done the same.

brum wrote:

Tony Miller wrote:

Hr Brum,

Used to get them from NAAFI, take them back to the UK and sell tem for £25.

PS Hope customs aint on this site

Er . . 'scuse me, did I just see the "C" word used ?

"Customs" that's an obscenity on a par with (sorry) "Traffic Warden".

Keep it clean lads, keep it clean !

My son works for them. Put the rifles away, he is in the tax credit department.

tax and customs in the one post !!! bad bad bad

Hi Jim,

That we did that we did.

Another trick that we got up to in the 60s when the rate of exchange was around 11DM = £1, was to come home on leave with 1DM coins which very conveniently fitted into slot machines in Pubs and Cafes around the UK. Obviously this wasn't something that I did myself but heard it on the Grapevine.

Damn, I didn't know that!! Sheldrake.

When I went home to get married in 65 they had changed......sorry, a friend of mine told me that all the slot machine mechanisms had bee changed, bugger.

Hardly worth the bother as the mark was only the size of a shilling and you got 20 of them for a pound

I seem to remember that a 2 pfennig piece worked OK as a sixpence in the early 60's , and most machines had the facility to accept them, I have heard that some people took bags of them back to blighty on leave!

Yes Roy,That was certainly true.but they never worked for me,nor anyone else i knew at the time.

Considering vending machines and bandits were not all that sofisticated in the early 60s i presume a number of coins did get through

Myth or Fact?