Pretend soldiers - 22 jan 2010

Cant believe its been a year since my last posting, and it was a busy year for me, but I got the time now to resume it. We have relocated back to Yorkshire, 10 months spent in Pickering running a pub, but now we are in York, and i'm wanting to get back to working in the heritage and historical sectors which i have missed so much.

So where did we leave it, ...think it was my views on the Falklands Conflict wasnt it. Well i'll lighten the blog this time and tell you about the fun of being a military re-enactor....

Theres a wealth and diversity of different eras and various branch of arms to volunteer for as a re-encator these days, ...from picts to romans, from vikings to normans, from robin hood to dads army, or you can even join the ranks of Darth Vaders Imperial Stormtroopers. I plumped for the REDCOAT, that icon of the british soldier from Wellingtons 'scum of the earth' to the heroes of Rorkes Drift. It offered the romance, the glamour, the pride and the chance of firing a big old smokey musket with a sharp piece of metal stuck on the end.

Well it was none of these, apart from the gun bit, it turned out to be tiring, sweaty, uncomfortable, dirty, noisy and sometimes embarrassing when things all went to ratshit, but it WAS FUN. Especially the bit in between the live action stuff, there was the drinking and the revelry, the meeting of others all sharing stories and jokes, and sometimes even girls....yes girls.


The above chaps are from the same group i joined, the Old Faithfuls, the 68th Durham Light Infantry. I joined them in 2000 when i was separated from my wife and had time on my hands to indulge myself in spurious hobbies, it was something i suppose i had harboured from the time i tried to join the armed forces, but here you could live in another time warp. They were a mixed bunch, some young ones and more older types, again with probably time on their hands now that the kids had left home, mostly from around the gateshead area, although they were other pointless members from overseas and down south, but they hardly ever attended any meetings or events. It was a close friend who was already a member who invited me to a curry night they were having, this i thought would be a good time to meet them. Hmm, lets see, put these three things together and what do you get, Geordies+drink+curry...?
Yes it just turned into a rave, but it was a start, i agreed to join and see them at their next drill session, i musta been pissed!

Pissed on duty again......

Now the thing about pretending to be a historical soldier is that you are not really a soldier. You may have the weapons, you may have the uniform, you may have the knowledge, but you cannot live the life, or the hardships or the terror of fighting for your life against an enemy trying to kill you. Now i'm not a slim, lythe, panther type of person, more a Gnu rolling around in mud, and i thought i looked the bees-knees in my bright new red Camblewick Green toy soldier uniform. That is until i saw a photo of myself my sister took at an event, and then all my pride and confidence just drained away, i looked more like the Fat Controller! I couldnt be a Napoleonic redcoat, i took my re-enacting seriously and there would not be an 18st foot of the line soldier, - just no way!

Now i have attended many, many events and seen the historical context of various battles or regiments been made a mockery of. To really expect the public to see how the soldier of long ago looked, fed, slept and fought then we've got to be true to their memory and history, and its NOT seeing girls taking the part of men (its not a sexist thing, just purity one) or Saxons wearing i-pods, or 20 stone Waffen SS men. The organisers and secretary's of these groups need to put their foot down and tell people when they are not doing justice to the dedication of the group, i'm not saying that they cant be an active member of the group, but something that would be in context of their appearance. Well, thats my rant and opinion out the way.

See see, look in the books, a FAT AIRBORNE PARA?, ....sorry it just aint right!

A particularly memorable event was when the group was invited to a multi-national re-enactment in Sarzana, Italy. It was June 2001, a vary hot month in northern Tuscany, not the best time to be running around in heavy woollen tunics and carrying 40lbs of kit, even worse when you are fat - it was a four day thing, with two days spent travelling, but it was only gonna cost each member £20 and it sounded a once in a lifetime event, so off we trot. Now we were told that we were to be lodged in a castle, which sounded great.. but, as we were the last to arrive we found that the only place left was in the deepest bowels of the castle, - in the dungeon, no hot running water, towels or maid service, but free moss, rats and slimy wet walls. Those damn frenchies had nabbed our rooms and the sunloungers too, still we all pulled together and with a spring clean, some fresh flowers and plenty of straw on the floor it almost felt cozy, then it was time for pasta and wine. Too much wine. Far, far too much wine.

We had to be up at the crack of dawn to start the days events, but after a long coach journey, hardly any sleep and then too much free aclohol we could barely get out of our pits to go for a piss. But being English i felt we had to be an example, so my close friend, Paul, and i eventually roused ourselves and decided to go for a shower and do the morning toiletries. Unfortunately we wern't the only ones to over-indulge the previous night and we found the only bath/shower was half full of regurgitated pasta, lasagne, pizza, some unknown hungarian dishes and copious amounts of wine, beer, lager and probably piss. So the shower was out, a quick handbasin wash down made do, ..oh the joys of living on the road. Anyway time for a good hearty British deposit, ....alas the toilet, shared by over 50 poor souls was in no fit state to be used, I almost decided to use the basin again until Paul recommeded a tried and trusted method, over the castle walls. So we climbed up to the ramparts found a good spot between the castellations and bombs away, ah it almost felt like heaven to be sat there with the beautiful morning sunrise peeping over the hills and not a care in the world, and hoping a frenchie would pop his head out of a windown down below! Sarzana Castle, beautiful to look at, shit to live in,

The main event of the weekend was taking place in the town below, with the French attacking us and beating us all the way back to the castle which was about 2 miles away. Apart from us we had Dutch, Austrian, German, Italian, Polish, and obviously French attendees, and we all got on famously well with very little malcontent. On the retreat back to the castle the English force kept the enemy off with a fire and run manoevre, all the time retreating back to the castle which stood on quite a steep hill about 300 feet above the town. At about a mile from safety we all ran out of ammo, so we took to our bayonets, then we saw a hoard of screaming cavalry come thundering down on us, so we turned and asked the captain should we form a square, but we were in the middle of a narrow street and he just looked at us and said 'No! SCARPER, every man for himself', so complete panic ensued which left me in fits of laughter and in fact I was the last to get back there. I was so knackered that i let the french army walk pass me, much to the jeers (friendly) and taunts of the foot soldiers, a friendly dutch soldier eventally walked the last half mile or so with me and shared his spare canteen which was full of brandy, ..ah by the gods it was finally worth it. Good memories and something i will never forget.

I would recommend anybody wanting to take part in re-enactment to go for it, its a tremendous learning curve, hard work but bloody good fun. I might go back to it once i have lost some weight, but what period?, i quite like the WW1 tommy, ...or maybe WW2 paras, ...or maybe 'Nam, theres just too much choice, by the time i decide it will probably have to be the Home Guard!

Real War - 9 feb 2009

I want to go back and give some thoughts and feelings about the Falklands, the first war we as a nation had been involved in during my lifetime.

Firstly I have to say that I am now grateful for not being involved personally in any of them. Today, as a forty-something I now have have a broader understanding of the world (I think) and the transparent reasons for going to war. Back in 1982 as a 20 year old I would have given my left testicle to be in the 'thick of it'; thats apparantly why the best killing machine is an 18 year old, - they know no better and have nothing to fear. But its a strange thing hindsight, I was blissfully living thru the 1970's and although aware of conflict, wether it be the middle-east, or vietnam, it was always far, far away. Yes, Northern Ireland was closer to home, but living on a council estate in Middlesbrough as a kid it was nothing to worry about. The six o'clock news seemed to have nothing but images of Beirut, a city in terminal meltdown, or hi-flying B52's dropping never ending streams of bombs on the lush jungles of Cambodia, or the devastation of a carbomb attack in some sleepy Irish border village.

Images from my childhood, slotted in between the Magic Roundabout and Dr Who....

This is where the Falklands should have been all along, then there would have been no-trouble from those cornedbeefers down south...... however, they still could have been trouble from Iceland, especially after nicking all our cod!

Then, suddenly in 1982 Britain was at war, no, not with the Germans again, but with some tinpot banana dictatorship way on down south, ....go thru Stevenage, turn right at Trafalgar Square and carry on past Cornwall till you come to a bunch of islands called The Falklands. (It was one of those surreal moments when we could not understand how an invasion force from Argentina had sneaked past our defences to land on an island near Scotland...oh how we laughed...)

I really WAS excited about a war, no thought of how many may be killed or the horrors to come, but at last I could tell my grandkids that I lived thru that war, maybe it was some rediculous notion of sympathy with my parents who had to live through a REAL WAR, except they got an address from the Prime Minister who actually announced the time and place when the war had begun. All we had was a blundering government who didnt really know how to react, and when they did it was a real 19th century fleet sendoff; sending the good old Royal Navy (to whom they had just previously announced massive cutbacks, seemed like this war had just saved their bacon!), to a far flung colony to give 'the blackies a damn good thrashing'. It was real Boys Own stuff, I was immensely proud of that fleet and had no doubt about the ability of our forces to to the job and come home with nothing but a dented pride. It was only many years later and after reading countless books about the conflict that I realised what a ad-hoc bunch of ships we managed to scrape together, the lack of a real carrier with airborne power, shoddy equipment and the amount of times we nearly lost it all to poor logistics, but like Dunkirk we somehow turned in to a miracle.I was glued to the box, I watched Newsnight for the very first time, I started to cut out and collect all the different newspapers coverage and I couldnt believe how well things were going at the start of May, it seemed a walkover. The peace process was in tatters (which is what I hoped, bizarre huh?...) and it was looking distinctly clear that we would have to go the full hog and invade our own territory. The jingo-istic press coverage lulled us all in to a false sense of smug satisfaction...

mmm, couldnt be less PC.....

So, it was real shock to the system and the country when we lost the 'Shiny Sheff', and 2 Sea Harriers almost on the same day. The word 'Exocet' had entered the english language, and we were introduced to 'smart' weapons, I think this is when the first doubts about our military abilities began to creep in to my concious; how can a ship, and a Royal Navy one at that be put out of action by one tiny missile, and it was darstardly french who supplied it? I had never questioned the legitimacy of the war, it seemed a clear and cut case of bullys taking something that wasn't theirs. However, during a heated debate about the war at college some of the more politically minded argued the toss that it was a well timed diversion of the Govt to give the public something other than miserable economic bad news, and that the islands were the result of US being the bullys in the first place, it was the last vestiges of colonialism fighting a gunboat war, and the sinking of the Belgrano seemed to reinforce that idea.... but it wont bring back the nearly 1000 soldiers, sailors and airmen, and civilians who lost theirs lives in the name of freedom*/democracy*/colonialism*/dictatorship* (*delete applicable).

Well, we all know how it ended, we won, they lost, they had a change of govt. We went back to miners strikes, Poll Tax riots and Maggie won another term, but it wasnt long before we were invited to participate in another war......sun, sand, and loads of tanks, wheres Monty when you need him?
Was it all worth it? I doubt it now, certainly the material recovery of the islands didnt make any difference, even now they are a drain on the UK, they are not self sufficient and need huge logistical and military resources just to keep 2000 odd people safe in sheep. Did it stop any bullies from invading another sovereign territory? Err, no, there was this chap called Saddam...
I suppose it did force the military to look at their equipment, and by 1990 at least we did have better boots, guns and personal protection.....oh, and corned beef was back on the menu.

And finally......

...the beautiful Avro Vulcan, got its blooding at the 12th hour, albeit with those nasty iron bombs, it was a very long way to go to get ONE bomb on target....