Brum our chat regarding Lurgan/Portadown has clearly not gone down very well with some troops...looking forward to my retirement then will have more free time to join in...at the moment check in the morning and the evening and feel if a post is worth reply to do it...something to do with gas bottles was the point I think...all the best young Steve

[quote="steve"]Brum our chat regarding Lurgan/Portadown has clearly not gone down very well with some troops../quote]



Don't take too seriously Steve ! (at least most of it !) It's just Brum and me having a tongue in cheek dig at each other....... I think ! Keeps the wits sharp when there's nowt but football on the tele.

I saw advertising for a Katja Ebstein at a concert to be held in Bad Salzuflen later this year, now there's a name from the late 60s.

Hi Lee Hi Lo , Es war ein mal ein jaeger.........

this meandering sex fingy , wos it brass or staybrite. ginger

brum it is said i am as nutty as spike milligan , but i cant quite share his genius ginger.

Probably just as well mate, he did go a bit barmy in the end !

Not to be picky, but if we can get Lt Col right, how come it's Let Gen

We got that one wrong, just like "Le Maj

Earlier on in this thread, several of you mentioned the heaters -- or lack thereof -- in your barracks.

I distinctly remember oil space heaters lit by those taper things one lit then dropped into the top of them -- into the pool of oil if memory serves (might be wrong on that point. Does seem an opportunity for one helluva flash fire to me!). Damn things reeked.

On my Dad's 2nd tour, housing was at a premium and after staying with German friends for 3 months we moved into a dinky 2-room place in a tiny village just over the hills from the Sorpe sea called Mellen, not far from a town out along the Hoennetal called Balve. It consisted of a large kitchen and a bedroom off the side. Mom and Dad had the bedroom and I slept on a horse-hair divan in the kitchen (lit by a round flourescent light in the middle of the ceiling one could hear blinking into life when Mom got up and turned it on in the mornings....I hated that sound!).

At the foot of the divan was an ancient old space heater. Dad had to truck down to the back shed every other day or so, pump out oil from the large tank down there into some sort of jerry can or whatever and haul that up to the room to fill the damn thing. Even now, some 40+ years later (aaaaaghh!!!) I can still recall the aroma of damp that permeated the rooms and this thing's oil. Stifling.

We also boiled our water, as an aside. And Mom used what she referred to as her German kettle to make coffee or tea. A coil one plugged in and stuck into the water...as the coil heated up it of course boiled the water. Imagine sticking a coil into a cup or container of water! But that was what was used.

She also had her "German washing machine". a long-handled thing with a large perforated brass bell on the end. This thing would be plunged up and down in a tub of water full of clothes, the idea being it agitated soapy water through the clothes. One step up, I suppose, from taking them down to the river and pounding them on the rocks!

Primitive....but interesting.