Its walls were high, made of clay and had watch-towers every few hundred feet, each being the resting place for civilian night guards as they huddled over their tea-brewing fire. In the middle of the camp was a scrubby football field on which inter-departmental football teams settled inter-departmental scores. Those of us less energetic sat behind the goal in wicker chairs on the NAAFI veranda, at the east end of the field watching the game and drinking Amstel beer so cold you could stick your tongue to the bottle.

Along the north and south long sides of the pitch ran a road and at its edge lay the arched or pillared entrances to what looked like traditional villas but were either offices or living accommodation. The REME, RAOC, RMP and RCT accommodation was located on the south side of the road running between the main gate and the Quartermaster’s Stores. Behind the living accommodation lay the other points of interest namely, the cookhouse, the workshops and transport areas and an army cinema called The Jerboa. Much of the remainder of the camp, I forget.

The Craftsman Arms was our REME club, famous for its impromptu cabarets and party nights. My party piece was a rip-off of Wink Martindale’s old song “A Deck of Cards”, and I joined in many of the Monty Python-style sketches that kept us and our guests amused. I wrote many of the sketches myself. The workshops were quite large and housed a recovery section as well as L.A.D. repair bays. My first job, when I arrived in the workshop, was to look after the battery shop. On level with the repair workshops, it had rows of vehicle batteries constantly on charge on a large metal bench. A large cistern fastened to the wall at the top of a flight of steps, held battery electrolyte that had to be carefully mixed on a regular basis and used to top up the batteries during charge. I burnt many a hole in my overalls with the acid. One day I found a massive dead rat floating in this cistern.

A number of Arab civilians worked with us and we got to know them quite well. One young lad, popularly known as “Chico”, would run out to a kiosk on the main road to buy us egg rolls for our morning break. Spread with fill-fill, a sort of chilli paste, they would be delivered wrapped in old newspapers, and these egg rolls would be hot enough to take the roof off the mouth. There were some German civilians also working in the workshops, perhaps left from the war, and they were damn fine technicians.

The main gates of the barracks opened out onto the road between Benina airport and the town of Benghazi about 2 miles away on the coast. Many of the families’ living accommodations were scattered around the area. Some were in apartments in the town. I used to pick up a radio presenter from BFBS in a Hillman Husky on the mornings that I was duty driver. It was speaking to him that I further developed my interest in being a radio presenter. A regular BBC Sunday broadcast was Two-Way Family Favourites and requests would be played for the soldiers based in Germany. When it became Three-Way Family Favourites, it sometimes featured Benghazi and we would hear requests from home. In later years some of the presenters I had known became involved in a holiday for requests scandal, but that is another story.

One family quarters’ area I remember was known as Garden City, and was located a few miles away from the barracks. I used to baby sit for the rhythm guitarist of the band for whom I then played. I think he lived here. Walking home was always a bit of a risk because of the numbers of dogs, known as Piads that roamed the streets after dark. Garden city was one of the areas we had to evacuate following the outbreak of violence in June 1967.

Across the road was another family quarters’ area where our workshop ASM Parkinson lived. I know this because I dated his daughter Alice once or twice, and used to walk her home to here. This area was reputed to be the location of one of Benghazi’s notorious brothels, but I think it was only a myth. I never found it! I made friends with another family, Italian I think. He worked for Barclay’s Bank International in town and she made the most delightful pizza I had ever had in my life. Actually, it was the first pizza I had ever had in my life. I remember that I used to visit their villa to teach their young son how to play the guitar but, for my life, I cannot remember how I met them, probably at one of the forces clubs or the BP club. She once gave me a packet of instant pizza to take home to England. It had all of the ingredients in little tins inside the box. I kept it safe and finally took it home in the January of 1968 when we evacuated the camp. Unfortunately, the packet got damaged in transit and some of the yeast was lost, so it never rose when I tried to bake it and show it off to my parents.

Another family that I met came from somewhere in Sussex. Your man worked for BP, I think. Very well off they were and would invite me for supper quite regularly. I don’t know why their names escape me, but I do remember that rainstorms thrashed the area for a few days at a time leaving everywhere under a few feet of water. The power would go off and we’d sit there playing carpet bowls by candle light and suddenly the lights would come back on to a chorus of cheers. There would be a charge to the ‘fridge, which was packed with ice, to get another cool drink. I visited them once in a small village called Ferring by Sea back in England but unfortunately never kept in touch.

The Ghibli was another menace that pestered us. An extremely powerful, hot sandstorm, it blew off the land and coated everything and everybody with a fine layer of orange dust. It would leave your mouth gritty and you had to seek shelter when it came, because you could not see a foot in front of you. Once, the wind blew so violently that every lamp standard along the sea front was turned 90 degrees by its strength. Our local, English-speaking newspaper was called the Ghibli News and featured a photograph of this carnage on its front page. Benghazi, itself, was not a bad town. It was kept somewhat clean by the fresh air that blew in off the Mediterranean. Only the back streets and the market, or Souk, had any seedy look about them, but so do markets in every town in the world. I haggled for and bought my first diver’s watch in a Benghazi Souk. It was cheap, but got jammed up with sand on the first desert exercise we did. The timing bezel fell off and I had to throw it away. We had to be careful how we dressed in town. Women needed to dress decently, covering up their shoulders and legs, and men were forbidden to wear shorts in the town. Of course, we could dress however we wanted in our own areas or on the forces private beach. One of our colleagues got badly assaulted by a group of Arabs once, raped in fact. We don’t know whether it was due to wearing shorts or not, but he spent quite a few days in hospital. In the usual sardonic humour of the young squaddie, he was sent a get-well request by some of his colleagues. They requested “A Burning Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash. Ouch! Monday, 5th June 1967 began as any other day. Up at six, showered and off dawn to the mess for breakfast. Working days started at seven and finished at one, due to the afternoon heat. This time we were all held in the mess whilst we waited for the arrival of those who never usually made it to breakfast. It was explained to us that war had broken out between the Arabs and the Israelis and we were likely to find ourselves on the receiving end of the bad stuff. What made matters worse was that the Royal Anglians, normally our infantry cover, had returned to Malta and the Loyals, their replacements had not been able to come because of engine trouble with their LCT transport. Alternatively, it could have been the other way round. Either way, we were stuck without any infantry to support us. Therefore, armed with a clean pair of overalls, a steel helmet, a rifle and a bandolier of fifty rounds, we began practising our Internal Security procedures. Most of us did that, while every welder and metal smith in the barracks cut up steel grating known as XPM (expanded metal) and fitted it to the windows of the RCT’s 39-seater coaches. Our job was to use the buses to bring all of the dependent families into the barracks for safety. It was hair-raising because we had to go into town and to other places where Arabs had already killed or injured British soldiers. The hardest part was getting families to leave their treasured possessions and come in with their children and basic requirements to the camps. I don’t know what happened at Waverley Barracks but I know that D’Aosta Barracks began to fill up very rapidly. Family groups moved into our accommodation and we moved into 2-man bivouacs outside the buildings. I shared with a guy called Pinky Pinkney. I don’t remember his real first name. Tuesday saw us in the town searching through the smouldering remains of the NAAFI shop and tearooms. It had all been pilfered and set on fire. Some of the Military Police had had a lucky escape, their local office was on the top floor of this building and marauding youths and looters had trapped many inside. We saw one of our coaches that had been attacked by rioters, I don’t know how many were hurt, but it lay on its side with the interior gutted and all the fittings molten and twisted. The aluminium handrails hung down from the roof like strings of chewing gum and the seats were just skeletal frames. Working on it later in the repair bay, I found that the carburettor had melted and was stuck to the side of the engine housing. The recovery mechanics, one I knew was called “Rowdy” Dulake, had to fit two rear wheels to the bus, upend it and tow it back to the workshops. I have a picture in my collection. A Saracen armoured car went the same way. We were told very little about victims.