“Had some fiction collected into album-type works.” Oh, Bravo! Not sure if I should ask for further details – anonymity being the default for a lot of us here. ? Mike’s poems are also worthy of wider recognition, imho.
I have written a book around the Aden troubles which is unedited, unexpurgated, and probably unsaleable in it’s present state – I have not looked at it since 2014, but this thread has rekindled my interest.
I wrote a poem/rhyme based on one of the chapters –
The Blindfold.
It was so cold on that still ,dark , desert morn
When in came the Colour Sergeant head newly shorn
Excuse me sir I remember him say
It’s oh five hundred already, another busy day
I wondered what my Dad was doing and if Mam was still asleep,
And If my mates were at work , grafting hard, but on the cheap
They all think that I’m now some sort of toff
“I wish they would take this sweaty bloody blindfold off ”
The Colour Sarn’t had got the troop together
They had checked their weapons, and stowed their leather
Fatty and Taff and that Scots boy Lofty
Who was six foot six but a real softy
Off we went in The RAF ‘s chopper
When all of a sudden ‘bang’, we came one hell of a cropper
Down we went and hit the ground hard
And in the words of the immortal bard
‘all that lives must die’?
But why those brave happy fun loving lads of mine – why?
But some survived & rubbing our eyes we grabbed what we could and we ran
Away from that smelly burning Whirly, up there in the Radfan
So what happened? were we hit by some sort of rocket
Yes, apparently fired by a 9 year old hidden in a pocket
And now my brave boys had almost all gone
And I wondered who was left on that cold Yemeni morn
I wondered what they had said back home in the Papers
“Welsh boys lost in Radfan capers “????
But how many I just didn’t know, I’d seen poor Fatty staring into space
A look of fear etched in his face
And Jock I’d seen him burn up and fall
And Taff and Nobby I could still hear them call
Help me Help me I heard Taffy cry , ‘help me Mam
But I couldn’t see him , then a shot & silence, damn
What would I tell their mums and their dads
About their loving brave hero lads
If ever I get away from this horrible place
“And they take this sweaty bloody blindfold off my face ”
Percy the Whirly Pilot, I remember was like a man possessed
Screaming & firing into the hornet’s nest
He’d picked up a rifle from the ground
And down went the bandits round by round,
It was just like being in a dream
Except for the noise, the smell , and Percy’s pearcing scream
And there he stood, no more than fifteen
A face of hatred, seldom seen
Kalashnikov pointing straight at my head
But then down he went clearly very very brown bread
I looked around and saw Percy ‘my new best friend
Who’d made sure that the rebel had met a swift end ‘
I remember it then went quiet and blacker than black
I’d been caught in a second wave attack
When I awoke in some smelly room, I was dry & so hot I started to cough
Where the hell was I ? “I wished they’d take that sweaty bloody blindfold off ”
The next day, early, I heard a distant noise
And I knew at once it was my boys
Then smoke filled the room and I was suddenly deaf
And the Colour Sarn’t and Percy entered stage left
Morning Sir said the Sarge as he grabbed me under my aching arms
Me, I just gave in to his boyish charms
I still couldn’t see what was going on
But I knew it was nasty from the dreadful pong
Next thing I knew We were in a crossfire
With the lad of 9 and his mates behind the wire
Percy then gave them a shot of flame
And as they burned I heard them scream the prophets name
Back at the base and before the debrief
I managed a shower and clean of the teeth ,
The CO was waiting, now he was ‘a toff ‘!
Me, I was just glad that “sweaty bloody blindfold was off”