Sounds and Smells of Deutschland

You have to be careful with it, and it must be eaten on the day it's made Brum.

Think I'll give that one a miss mate !

brum

brum wrote:

Raw pork Bob ? Christ, I thought that was one meat you CAN'T eat raw !

It's a helluva lot better than the pickled fish that was on offer on a couple of visits to Denmark................McDonalds was very popular on those visits!

My Mom thought those coils to boil water, never knew they were called brewsticks, were fantastic! The only problem with them was they got lime all over them quite quickly due to the mineral content of the local water and it would sometimes flake off but while bits of 'stuff' floating in your coffee or tea looked kinda yucky, you just picked it out and carried on. It's not like it was going to do you any harm!

When we returned to Canada, Mom brought her 'element'/coil back with her. I suppose Dad had to do some twigging with it for it to be able to be used on Canadian voltage, or maybe we had one of those converter plugs, I forget.

I do recall someone, a family friend or cousin or somebody, asking mom what that thing was on it's rack on the kitchen counter. Mom told her it was her "German coffee maker", and proceeded to give a demonstration. The woman was flabbergasted and thought it was an extremely dangerous thing to have around...sticking a live electrical coil into water???? yeah, well....whateverrrrr LOL

LOL, I remeber the flakes,

we used to heat up soup with ours as well Stephen.

"Brewstick" was the name that blokes around me at the time gave to the Heaters, Immersion, Hand held, 240 volt, Tea Brewing, for the use of. I'm sure the thing had other names too.

brum

Lecky kettles which didn't half make the generators whine when they were switched on or the old kettle stuck on top of the parafin (kero) heater permanently keeping warm.

Did anyone use those electric stoves on the doors of the 432's? Can't say we did much.

"Did anyone use those electric stoves on the doors of the 432's? Can't say we did much."

Once I think or maybe twice, they weren't very good were they.

Most crew vehs had them, even the Stalwart but they were bulky and slow. Like Jim said, they weren't very good.

brum wrote:

Most crew vehs had them, even the Stalwart but they were bulky and slow. Like Jim said, they weren't very good.

Yep, the Sigs containers (Auto40, MCVF etc.) had them as well. I believe they were designated space heaters. Didn't heat up a whole lot of space as far as I could tell. We purchased a fan heater, which really made the gene make funny noises.

Mike

brum wrote:

"Brewstick" was the name that blokes around me at the time gave to the Heaters, Immersion, Hand held, 240 volt, Tea Brewing, for the use of. I'm sure the thing had other names too.

brum

Known as a curly poker in my day.

Mike

mjm34 wrote:

brum wrote:

Most crew vehs had them, even the Stalwart but they were bulky and slow. Like Jim said, they weren't very good.

Yep, the Sigs containers (Auto40, MCVF etc.) had them as well. I believe they were designated space heaters. Didn't heat up a whole lot of space as far as I could tell. We purchased a fan heater, which really made the gene make funny noises.

Mike

Think you are getting mixed up Mike. These things were water boilers for cooking/boiling water allegedly. They were plumbed into the vehicle electrics. I think I know what you are talking about though. Bit like a central heating radiator but smaller.

Is that right teabag?

Quote :

I believe they were designated space heaters.

In the early 60s these heaters were installed in just about every comms vehicle and trailer, at corps and div level.I don`t know about brigades.and very nice they were too.Made life a bit more bearable to be warm on those long boring shifts.

I remeber them in the box bodies on exercise with 1 (BR) Corps, they were not the same thing as in the 432, they were nice though, toasty toes on the long night watches.

This is the second reference I've noticed to heaters in FV 432.
I never saw a heater (other than the normal B veh fitted heaters) in any veh that we had at Regt'l level right up to the time I left Germany in '77.
Our only source of heat, and only when parked of course, was through the engine decks. 432 kept quite warm courtesy of heat from the gearbox.
"Corps and Div level", eh ? We allways thought the Generals were parked up in a Schloss somewhere !

brum wrote:

This is the second reference I've noticed to heaters in FV 432.
I never saw a heater (other than the normal B veh fitted heaters) in any veh that we had at Regt'l level right up to the time I left Germany in '77.
Our only source of heat, and only when parked of course, was through the engine decks. 432 kept quite warm courtesy of heat from the gearbox.
"Corps and Div level", eh ? We allways thought the Generals were parked up in a Schloss somewhere !

You are correct Brum. No heaters apart from the louvres. Burnt arse and cold upper body when on the move. They'll be wanting sleeping bags next!

I always did feel sorry for the poor chaps who didn`t have the comforts of a Corps HQ.A sleeping bag on a camp bed tucked between the PBX and MDF in a nice heated box body ....bliss.

LOL

I don't remember any heating in the 432's either just the cooker and that wasn't much use for heating.

Oh and on 1 (BR) corps exercises, the Senior officers all had their own "caravan" box bodies and the GOC slept in one of the screamers.

Majors and above at 7 Sigs had their own caravan, albeit a modified trailer.My OCs was quite luxurious.Even had a built in wine rack..

Gordon, you are joking about the wine rack, surely.

Nope..The caravan was constructed by the Techs,I was involved with the electricals while others did the furnishing.The wine rack was the idea of our F of S..Mind you it was used mainly for vodka and whisky.

Corps HQ was a nice comfy place to spend time on exercise.

I don't deny it was comfy but in my time at 1 (BR) Corps it was dry on exercise, well for us anyway, the officers had their mess and the SGT's as well but for us rank and file it was (nominally) dry.

Back to the sounds of Germany.

The un-godly screech of a mo-ped at 0530 hrs echoing off the walls of my hung over head.