The Army Kinema Corporation

Hairy Lineman · Number of posts: 5 Registration date: 2009-11-05

And you are still making an ass of yourself today! I remember putting on a film at Elizabeth Cinema, cannot remember the name but halfway through we had to turn the volume up high and let the film run. cyclops

It took a few minutes and then on the screen it looked as though the film was melting and the sound went off. Of course being a cinema full of squaddies there were loads of Boos and jeers, then suddenly a scream rent the air and there was a close up of this face on screen with all the flesh peeling off and an eye shooting out all this gunge! affraid

I was literally thrown back into the other projector as had been watching through the viewing window and I have never seen so many grown men cringing under seats in my life! All the hard cases in the camp were literally
blubbering all over the place!

Really funny to see! And boy did I get stick at the end of the film, especially from the Squadron OC who had taken his wife to see the film! After that it was taken off the circuit! Why it wasn not taken off before then I do not know as there was a note in the reel tins to warn about it! scratch

donald · Subject: Re: The Army Kinema Corporation Sat Nov 07, 2009 4:20 pm

I remember one AKC cinema in BAOR where the "horrors" were "live".I was happily sitting watching a film with the wife,munching some cadburys,when I dropped the bar of chocolate on the floor.I bent to pick it up,but the mice(I hope they WERE mice)were quicker,and a scampering of little feet,and the cadburys was gone.The wife screamed,said out loud,a rat just ran over my foot,and all the girls made a rapid exit!(and some of the boys too)
------
Don

PS - I had to leave too as there was about a foot of snow and the wife would never have made it home in her silly shoes!

Hairy Lineman · Number of posts: 5 Registration date: 2009-11-05

Typical the wives were never prepared for the inevitable snow or rat! cat

I did a pest and rodent course at Sennelager and often got called out to the NAAFI or Sgts Mess to get rid of cockroaches, for some reason the rats only went to the Officers Mess! Always wondered if they knew something I didn't! lol!

Chris

Stephen Lock · Subject: Re: The Army Kinema Corporation Sat Nov 07, 2009 8:34 pm

Hairy Lineman wrote:

Typical the wives were never prepared for the inevitable snow or rat! cat

I did a pest and rodent course at Sennelager and often got called out to the NAAFI or Sgts Mess to get rid of cockroaches, for some reason the rats only went to the Officers Mess! Always wondered if they knew something I didn't! lol!

Chris

Rodents were never one of my favourite creatures...not as bad for me as snakes (aaaaagghhhh!!!! affraid

), but damn close.

I now live in the Glorious Province of Alberta, Canada -- the nation's only 'rat free' territory, so I don't have to contend with those critters any more. Mice? yeah....they're a problem.

I remember living out on 'the economy' our first tour (59-62) -- I would have been 6 years old -- and the block of flats we Canadians were housed in were originally built as housing for workers at the some of the local factories and, at the time, were out in the middle of the fields near Balve, out along the Hoennetal southeast (?) of Hemer/Stephanopel/Deilinghofen.

We had storage lockers down in the cellar and it was normal to, before entering (the light was halfway down the corridor and was turned-on by pulling a chain), to jiggle the door-knob so the rats knew humans were about to enter and could scatter to where ever it was they normally hung out....you could hear them skittering off.

The garbage bins were these heavy metal contraptions with a lid that had a large bar across the top...a rat lock. I can remember, as part of my household chores, taking the garbage out and seeing on any given day a large rat perched up on top of the bins, very curiously studying me.

Out behind the block of flats was this immense excavation, long since grown over with foxglove and such. Originally, as I understand it, it was excavated to have more flats built in behind the existing ones, but it never happened (even a decade later when we were back for our 2nd tour, the Big Hole was still there!).

The one flat was in the basement but if one looked out the windows along the back of the flat one looked down 2 stories into the hole. And into the open water line below us....one could see rats swimming along down there! Lovely, but it was all part and parcel of life and it was a heavily rural area.

I also recall, shortly after Xmas one year, one of the Canadian families, unfamiliar with how things worked in Deutschland, left the turkey carcass sitting on the kitchen table. The next morning the turkey had mysteriously disappeared. They searched everywhere and couldn't find it and finally just chalked it up as "one of those things.'

Two or three years later, when preparing to rotate back to Canada and cleaning the flat in preparation for move-out, they had occasion to slide the huge livingroom schrank away from the wall in order to clean and dust in behind it....they found the remains of the turkey carcass, by now picked clean!! Ick.... pale

As teenagers, we often went to the Globe up in Deilinghofen. I don't ever recall sharing the experience with mice or rats, but have no doubt the building was rife with either/or. No, actually, now that I think of it...I do recall my Mom saying on more than one occasion watching a mouse scamper down the main aisle. Those would be very cultured mouses!!! Apparently, they favoured Disney shorts featuring their favourite Hollywood rodent, Mickey something-or-other LOL

Hairy Lineman · Number of posts: 5 Registration date: 2009-11-05

I know Hemer as while at Dortmund I had the "opportunity" to go pot holing there. Remember it well as our instructor/mentor was a young Rupert (2Lt) who knew everything and so our first day was okay, we went about three miles 1½ each way but then we went to bed under canvas and halfway through the night we found our sleeping bags were moving, afraid it might be an earthquake due to the underground cavers I jumped out only to find myself in freezing cold water, the so called Rupert had told us to put our tents in the middle of a dried up river bed, which as it was the middle of winter we had a huge thunderstorm. Rolling Eyes

Later after relocating we visited a local gasthof for a few beers, one of our lads put the jukebox on ony to find a huge moose of a Canadian looming over him telling us he wanted to sing so turn that goddarn noise OFF! We meekly did as we were bid and listened to him sing, and boy that man could sing.

We got a few beers in and we all gathered together for a sing song which the local Germans found amusing as we were singing all the old WW1 and WWII songs! drunken

I have a friend from Minnesota on Skype who was stationed there and worked for the prison service after leaving the army, he was Signals same as myself.

Anyway off on the Rememberance Parade tomorrow with the Royal Briitish Legion we have quite a good one this year as we are accompanied by a local cadet band and some WWII vehicle enthusiasts with Ding, Ferrets, Jeeps and old Signals Land rovers as well as a motorcycle and an ordinary army issue bicycle! I will be in my electric buggy as cannot march on one leg!! Mad

Chris (Eastleigh between Winchester and Southampton UK)

Paul · Subject: Re: The Army Kinema Corporation Sun Nov 08, 2009 2:04 am

Hairy Lineman wrote:

I will be in my electric buggy as cannot march on one leg!! Mad

..............

Chris (Eastleigh between Winchester and Southampton UK)

But you will be there Chris, that is the important bit!!

Take care.

Paul.