Transferred to Mauripur in March 1942, we had the advantage of a new camp cinema and its first film-projectionist was a Welshman whose main job was as a despatch rider. He drove a most powerful ‘Indian’ bike and he got the job of cinema projectionist because he had been apprenticed to that employment in ‘civvy street’.

The senior medical officer was S/Ldr Hammond, a big Devonian man who regularly sent parcels to his patient wife. I used to post his parcels which had been carefully stitched in a canvas cover by the camp Dhurzie. Rumour had it that the good fellow kept a bottle of brandy handy with the label removed and replaced by one reading ‘DDT one part per thousand’.

One Christmas time, I think if might have been 1943/44, a Liberator arrived with its American crew, laden with Christmas goodies, lots of which ‘disappeared’ without their knowledge. A hue and cry followed and everybody had to ‘stand by their beds’ while the police did a search for ‘unaccounted-for’ goodies. Many bods had items that might have alerted the authorities and these were passed around until they ‘disappeared’.

It might be considered a despicable act to purloin such luxuries but perhaps those responsible might have been envious that the Americans were issued with such unobtainable ‘desirables’ against our own ‘soya sausages’.

That is now all ‘grist to the mill’ as it were but as far as I recall, nothing was ever found from that ‘raid’ and it was rumoured that the missing items were buried in the desert (and may still be there — who knows?)

 A recently published anecdote mentioned two chaps from Clifton who were sent to test out a lake for suitability for swimming. I think that lake would have been the one behind the MT billets and it was a salt lake. As I recall, we had the facility of using small boats to row on it.

One other association with that lake concerns a certain Pilot Officer Millar, a Scot, who had a habit of strolling around it in the hours of darkness, perhaps thinking himself back in the Highlands of his home country, and playing his bagpipes with due mournfulness. (The ‘dirge’ is not to everybody's liking.) The chaps stood the noise as long as they could until one night came the gurgling sound of air issuing from the said bagpipes as a group of ‘well- wishers’ seized the offending pipes and hurled them into the lake. I wonder if any of the old ‘salts’ responsible for that ‘life-saving operation’ might be amongst our members.

Finally, one job I did was to convey a huge flag-mast from Drigh road to Mauripur, where it was erected outside SHQ. That journey meant driving through the notorious Napier Road with the side members overhanging the vehicle sides and scattering the natives like falling confetti. I got told off on returning to the MT section for conveying a dangerous load.