 Those were the days, when I was younger and fitter. My first long haul flight from RAF Lynham to RAF Muharraq in Bahrein. Then getting off the RAF VC10 and feeling the heat of the weather. Seeing local Arab airfield workers wrapped up in old Army greatcoats and thinking... "Whats wrong with them.. its lovely and warm". The air temperature was in the high 50 Fahrenheit. Six month later, I was like those locals, wearing my Greatcoat when it was winter in the Gulf. I did not understand the great temperature differences between summer and winter.HMS Juffair was a good posting. Plenty of Sun, sand and no ’birds’, they were a rarity. Plenty of ’rumpus’ nights in the NAFFI. There was an outdoor swimming pool that was built at the back of the NAFFI building. That was a good place to cool off after work. I worked in the ’Message Centre’ a the Joint HQ there. One bloke, a Royal Navy Yeoman of Signals was a favourite character. CPO (Yeo of Signals) Stone. A great guy, his distinguishing feature was his great bushy beard!
The Single Mens barracks were fairlry basic, there was air-conditioning units, but they did not always work.
Later I was posted down to ’Hamala Camp’ right down the middle of the Island, in the middle of the desert, so it felt like the middle of nowhere.
It was just off the main road going south to the BAPCO compounds. It wasn’t to bad, I worked in the Signals building, not much activity, but we still had to work shifts including nights. It could be a bit boring, so reading was one of the ways of passing the time. I used to read a lot of cowboy books -- ’JT Edson’ about the old west etc. I flew back to the UK in September 1968 for my Brothers wedding. I had 3 weeks leave, so had to fly back to Bahrein after my leave was up. My Brother and Sister-in-Law will be celebrating their 43th Anniversary next year, 2011.
Oh how the years have rolled on by. Here I am 65 now and a grumpy old ’Victor Meldrew’ Pensioner. At the end of my tour in Bahrain, I flew back to the UK courtesy of the RAF on an old ’Hercules’ Transport plane. I believe this journey took about 14 hours, with an overnight stay in Malta at RAF Luqa, then continuing on the next morning. I did not get to see Malta, as we landed in the dark, and flew out the next morning quite early, still in the dark. So much for my few hours at Malta. The initial journey out by VC10 was about 8 hours I think. So the old rattle-trap flight back in a ’Hercules’ was one tiring flight. I had 3 weeks disembark leave, then another posting to 223 Signal Squadron (Radio) near Winchester Hants, and that was another 3 years posting in the UK... a good one too. |
