The Iron Curtain: My part in its downfall

Singlies Block
One day there was an uproar from the bog-cleaning delegation, someone had crapped and not flushed, and what the big fuss was, it was an immense turd that just wouldn’t go down. This was huge, it must have been about two foot long with a diameter of three inches, we had to call the Guinness Book of Records and quick, of course no-one would own up to it. Despite several flushings the monster turd wouldn’t budge. There was only one solution, blast it down with the fire hose. I swear that even with the fire hose blasting away the thing reared up and fought back, eventually gurgling down the hole with a dying gasp. Maybe it didn’t die, maybe it went on to breed in the sewers and years from now, hundreds of mutant gigantic turds will rise up from the drains and attack the citizens of Cyprus.
There were times during the year when the C.O. wished to inspect his camp. The loonyness started with a bull-night for the Troop Sergeant's inspection, if he wasn't satisfied there was usually another bull-night, then there was a bull-night for the Squadron Sergeant-Major's inspection and again if he wasn't satisfied it would be repeated, then there was the bull-night for the Regimental Sergeant-Major's inspection, and finally the C.O. would whizz around in about two minutes and hardly look at a thing. The block N.C.O. had to accompany the inspecting N.C.O. or Warrant Officer and was usually shat-on from a great height.
It was during my first experience of C.O.'s inspection that I realized what an easy life the married guys, known to us as 'pads', had. Once they left the camp to go home that was it, they were left alone for all of their days-off, we had to spend afternoons and nights of our days-off fucking around in the block! As well as this, we weren't allowed alcohol, not even beer in the block, naturally we did have, but I felt like a naughty schoolboy on an outing having to hide the beer all the time, a pad could have all the drink he wanted in his house. This was to be one of the major factors in my decision to leave the army in 1990.

Merry Mental Men

Christmas for us started the end of November or beginning of December when we had the traditional troop Christmas Ball, held in one of the top hotels in Larnaca. All the troop including civilian members, plus husbands, wives and guests constituted about 150 to 200 people, so it was a fairly grand affair. It was one of the rare occasions (that and the Summer Ball) when I wore a shirt and tie and even sometimes a suit. The night started with drinks in the lounge bar shortly followed by a four course traditional Christmas dinner including crackers, party hats and stupid jokes. The entertainment started around mid-night with a band playing pop music covers. When the band took a break there was a pop disco. The disco played all the stupid party songs - 'Oops-up side yer head', 'The Birdie Song' and even the old traditional 'Okey-Cokey' and 'Conga'. The conga would snake its way around all the tables, up stairs, through corridors, out to the street, in and out of the Ladies and Gents, picking up innocent and befuddled people on the way, growing all the while. On the bus on the way home there were fights and multi-coloured yawns. A good night was had by all.
The festivities continued with unofficial parties and the Christmas Balls of each troop. Then there was the singlies cook-house Christmas dinner and free beer, again with crackers and silly hats, traditionally served by the senior ranks, N.C.O.'s, Warrant Officers and Officers, in their number 2 dress. This dinner would start off tranquil but degenerate into a messy food fight. Every year, no matter where I was, Cyprus, Northern Ireland, Loughborough, Harrogate, there was always a food fight. Typical squaddies.
Then there was the carol singing. We singlies would organize ourselves into groups to pester the pads. We only picked on the married guys of our troop or ones that were well known to us. The carol singing was just a cover for a beer scrounge, some of the married guys hated it and hid until we went away, and some welcomed a bunch of drunken singlies into their homes, mainly the ones that had once been drunken singlies themselves.
On Christmas day it was another tradition for the married guys to invite the single guys for dinner, in groups of only two or three. They feared having more than three singlies in the house at the same time. But this was a quiet affair, a good family Christmas dinner and a few beers afterward and, depending on who the married guy was, more beers and a stop overnight. Not one singlie stayed alone or in the block on Christmas day, not even the real jerks.
I liked working the mid on Christmas Eve, everything was quiet, there were hardly any people in and there was a general atmosphere of friendliness and informality, there was also a buffet and some drinks. It was great knocking off Christmas morning knowing that you could relax all afternoon at a pad's house. The worst shift for Christmas day was afternoons.
One year shortly before Christmas day, a few of us went to visit the BFBS studios, we were shown around by one of the DJs, Charlie some-thing-or-other, these were the days of records and a double record playing deck on which the DJ himself would put on and cue the records (I hear now that the DJ just speaks and all the puting-on and cueing of CDs is done by a ‘technician’). We were known by some of the BFBS DJs because of our Rock Night exploits, we always called them and got it promoted over the radio. Anyway over a week later, New Year, after a party in a pads house, somebody suggested we visit the studios again as they were located just at the north end of the married quarters, a five minute walk. This time we were completely rat-arsed. The four of us wobbled our way up to the gate and somehow managed to pass the Turkish security guard, he was slipped half a bottle of whisky. There was no-one in reception and then someone said 'There's Charlie!' So he received us again, drunk though we were, and actually showed us into The Room (the one with 'On-Air' lit up above the door). While we entered the DJ said over the air, 'Oh-no, I'm being invaded by a group of drunken loonies from Ayia Nik!' He then asked us if we had any message for anyone and thrust a microphone in our midst. As this was all rather sudden, I said the first thing that came into my socially confused brain which was: 'This is for all our Swedish friends out there - hurdey-gurdy-gurdy- ...' There followed four drunken twits doing a very bad Muppets Swedish Chef impersonation. The 'Swedish friends' being the many Swedish UN soldiers on the island, not that I knew any of them, but Swedish Chef impersonations were the trend during this time. Needless to say we were politely but firmly shown the door, but not before we'd made our 'Wireless for the Blind' donation.

Break time

We were allowed a short break during afternoon shifts, we could go 3 or 4 at a time from each section. Usually the singlies chose to go between 5 and 6 o'clock and have tea in the cookhouse. I gave this up when I discovered it was much more fun to have a couple of beers in the Four Mile Inn. I then started promoting Pavlov’s as an alternative venue for breaks as it was fairly out of the way and no-one official was likely to go there and see us drinking beer. I thought. Never saw any of his famous dogs there. By this time we had steadily extended our break to a little over an hour.
So this particular Sunday, myself, another Corporal and two Lance-Corporals were nearing the end of our break, after having already drunk one bottle, we were all on our second bottle each, so the table appeared full of bottles as though we were on a drinking binge. Who should appear on the road jogging toward the border in sports kit, the RSM himself! The God of Discipline. Instant panic set in, then we thought that we'd be okay because the patio of Pavlov’s was half hidden by a large creeping bush, and the RSM seemed to be running past without noticing anything. Suddenly Pavlov himself, without his dogs, appeared on the patio and shouted at the RSM and started to jest with him, of course the RSM then turned and noticed us all sitting there in uniform, noticed the empty bottles and noticed the car in the car-park.
'Who's car is this? Are you drinking and driving? Are you normally allowed to drink while on duty?'
Corporal Roberts answered for us: 'It's my car sir, we're on our break'.
He informed us that we had to walk back and that he would inform W.O. 1 ***** popularly known as "Shovel-head" (and he once called ME ugly!). It was a Sunday, the Razzman would have to call Shovel-head at his home to come in especially to discipline us, so Shovel-head wouldn't be at all pleased.
We returned shamefully to work to await punishment from Shovel-head. He arrived and called only us Corporals into his office. Trying to act furious, though it was a very bad act, Shovel-head lectured us on how we were leading the young Lance-Corporals astray, asked us many questions about afternoon breaks and drinking beer, then gave us three options:
'You can face the O.C. on a charge, you can accept a fistfull of extras from me or you can resign'. By resign he meant finish our contract by buying ourselves out, the army generally frowned on people doing this, so the second time he offered the options, he didn't mention the third.
'So what will it be, O.C's or extras?'
I was trying not to laugh and waiting to see what Roberts would choose, he chose extras, then so did I, a 'fist-full' meant five.
As I sat again at my position I called Roberts up on the intercom and jokingly said 'Let's go down Pavlov’s after shift for a few beers'. I looked up to see Shovel-head had come out of the office and was glaring at me;
'You think it's funny do you Corporal Fear? Take another 5!'. Bugger.
Shovel-head obviously talked to all the shift commanders and shift supervisors because from then on, breaks were strictly limited to half and hour, nobody allowed off camp and definitely no beer drinking. Word got around as to who was responsible for this clamp down and we were disliked over the next few weeks or so. After a while I took to buying beer from the NAAFI and having a break in a friend's room, watching videos.

The Village

It didn't have a name, it was just 'The Village', someone once said it was Ayios Yeoryos, but I always thought that was the next village along were I used to get my hair cut. Besides there were a million Ayios Yeoryoses but I doubt there would've been two right next to each other.
The first bar I was introduced to was 'Chaz's'. Chaz was a Cockney Cypriot who thought himself more Cockney than Cypriot and was always slagging off the natives as though they were still under colonial rule and he was pure British. He had a pool table, a dart board and a great home-made beef pie. Chaz's was frequented by everyone; the 'I' corps, us sigs and even the chunks, the chunks were not often seen there though as they had little money and tended to confine themselves to the NAAFI bar where the beer and wimmen were cheaper and uglier.
'George's' was frequented by 2 squadron only; George was an ambitious young Greek-Cypriot bouzouki player, he told us he had been famous in the '70's in the Cypriot clubs of London. George had Folk nights, local celebrities were invited to come and sing or perform with George and his band, these were the only nights when the Cypriots went into George's all other nights it was just us squaddies. To us, George was the Jimmy Hendrix of the bouzouki, it was the first time most of us had seen anyone actually playing this instrument live and his fingers used to whiz up and down the fret board in a blur. You could almost see smoke rising.
Going in the other direction, toward Famagusta, there was Pavlov’s, only 100 yards from the U.N. border, very popular during my first tour of Cyprus, but somehow much declined in popularity by the time I went there on my second tour, mainly because it was a pig of a place, Pavlov himself was actually a part time policeman.
A typical afternoon at Pavlov’s was spent like this - as a group of about 8 - 10 singlies, we'd sit around a long table and play a whole assortment of silly drinking games; Take two dice, one starts at one end of the table, the other die at the other end, the players commence by throwing the dice, and continually doing so until a six is thrown, the die is then passed around clockwise; if you are still attempting a six and the other die catches up on you it's a 'Yam-sing' your drink or an absurd task as punishment. One hapless Joe Skin had to run to the border and back with his trousers around his ankles, he sure got some funny looks from the U.N. soldiers. The Turkish soldiers thought it was their lucky day.
Pavlov’s was the setting of some quite novel experiences (the silly games being some of the most novel). One particular night, fairly quiet as there were only three of us there, no bunnies, dice, or glass boots. Being quite drunk, we suddenly and unanimously decided to pay a visit to Ayia Napa, but there was the matter of transport, we didn't have enough money to pay for a taxi, it would have left us short. Then Pavlov, without his dogs, informs us that as a part time policeman, that particular night he had an extra duty to do in Ayia Napa itself. It was the height of the tourist season, extra coppers were needed during the nights. Pavlov was driving down to Ayia Napa and could offer us a lift in his two seater pickup. There were three of us. With Pavlov driving this meant there was only one spare seat. To decide who would travel in the back we had to draw lots. Then I had the novel idea of, instead of drawing lots we had to catch one of the giant bugs that were flying around the bare light bulbs. These were some species of cicada, mutated to about 4 inches long by heat and good living, very ugly and screeching like mini-banshees. We weren't quite sure if they bit or not. Who would be brave enough to catch one? Who wouldn't be brave enough to catch one would travel 15 miles of bumpy, pot-holed road in the back of a pickup. As I had thought of the idea I immediately got up to show that it was no great deal and snatched an ugly bug out of the air. I certainly wouldn't have done it sober. The thing immediately let out a loud screech in protest, it buzzed fiercely and tickled my palm but didn't bite. Seeing that it was a fairly easy feat my drunken colleagues followed suite and caught one each. This then still didn't solve our problem of who would travel third class, I immediately declared my seniority and said I wouldn't go in the back, this set up and argument from the other two as to who was the senior, one chap gave in and resigned himself to his fate.
Pavlos driving, in his police uniform, he would’ve got Show Parade every night, two of us squeezed into one passenger seat, the other bouncing around in the back of the pick up, no seat-belts, we exceeded the speed limits, all the way to Ayia Napa, doing 80 Kph through villages with a 30 limit. They're pretty lax, the Cypriot police.