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Post by Frenchie on May 17, 2010 2:48:49 GMT 1
I joined the Battalion with Mick Hooton, we travelled over to Hong Kong together. Dennis Vine was a right nutter but a great friend. Mick went into Recce I think, and I went into Mortars. I met up with the Hooton brothers in a pub in Aintree just before leaving UK. We had a brilliant night from what I remember of it. Welcome mate.
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Welcome
May 17, 2010 10:32:12 GMT 1
Post by harold9919 on May 17, 2010 10:32:12 GMT 1
Thanks Eddie Yes the hootans were a good pair, and yes Den was a right nitter LOL but in a good way, There was also Rosy lea, The best memary of rosy was when we were in Sion mills with the Recce, it was on a day of in ebrington when me and rosy went down the water side for a little lite refreshment shall we say well by the time the day had come to a close you can imagian the state we were in Rosy was well and truely out of his head and i had to try and get him back the ebrington and he did not want to go,in the end we went to the chines chippy in the waterside and rosy got stroppy with the choggie, the choggie called the RPs and lo and behold Leon Smart turned up with is mates, i ended up with a bloody great fine sent of to the morters and a very bad heir cut curtasy of dave dawes, the then RSM, Oh happy days
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Welcome
May 17, 2010 16:27:40 GMT 1
Post by Frenchie on May 17, 2010 16:27:40 GMT 1
Yep, I well remember Leon "Keep off the Grass man" Smart. I spent a bit of time over in his 'office' over the years. Dave Dawes was probably the best RSM we had back then. I was in A Company by the time we got to Ebrington, I asked for a transfer to a rifle company because I got so bored sitting in that tiny mortar store up the hill in Stanley fort every day. Boy was that a mistake. I never really got bored in A Company.......never had the time
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Welcome
May 20, 2010 13:10:35 GMT 1
Post by harold9919 on May 20, 2010 13:10:35 GMT 1
When you came for a visit to sion mills or straban with A coy i may have taken you all for a strole around the towns and country estate, As i was a local area expert it was my job to act as tour guide, good fun was had when we took the diferant coys around the ballycoleman est and down Dog ally, that bloody great dane that had no teeth in the end house was a laugh when the coy lads came under attack from it, It could not bite but god could it suck LOL LOL LOL ;D
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Post by Frenchie on May 21, 2010 9:39:12 GMT 1
You might remember my dobermann which became a sort of platoon mascot and used to patrol with us. After coming under fire on the slope coming down the hill into Strabane centre, heading towards the high sanger at the right turn, I turned my vehicle over and it ended up on the weighbridge on the right. My dog panicked and ran off. The players threatened to kneecap him if they got him but he walked in with a foot patrol three days later. He was a bit bedraggled and hungry but otherwise ok. Talk about escape and evasion.
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Welcome
May 21, 2010 10:32:12 GMT 1
Post by harold9919 on May 21, 2010 10:32:12 GMT 1
Sorry mate thats one i don,t remember, When you say the slope into the town center are you taking about the one from the head of the town and is the right turn the one at the very bottom of the high street near the hump and the cattle market, or is it the one from the ballymagorry rd with the sanger in abercorn sq, that was a very tight right turn and took you around the bottom end of strabane near the hump
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Welcome
May 21, 2010 11:05:26 GMT 1
Post by Frenchie on May 21, 2010 11:05:26 GMT 1
Sorry mate thats one i don,t remember, When you say the slope into the town center are you taking about the one from the head of the town and is the right turn the one at the very bottom of the high street near the hump and the cattle market, or is it the one from the ballymagorry rd with the sanger in abercorn sq, that was a very tight right turn and took you around the bottom end of strabane near the hump Harold, It was the one on the Ballymagorry Road, Heading into the town if you were coming from Derry. There was a high sangar directly in front in Abercorn square where the thru traffic had been blocked. The right turn took you around the centre and then on to the Hump. We were all a bit dazed and the usual crowd was gathering around us to have a go. The lad in the top sangar had already radioed it through so a Sarry which was on QRF was with us in about eight minutes and the QRF lads saw them off before it got any uglier. This was the day before Christmas eve I also remember the Lassie Collie dog which used to hang around the Pedestrian check point on the river side of the town centre. We used to feed it scraps at the checkpoint. It stopped coming one day and the rumour was that the bad guys had shot the poor thing for 'fraternisation' ( bloody stupid idiots if this was true.) We suffered only light casualties during the incident with the landrover and were back on duty next day.
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Welcome
May 22, 2010 13:34:02 GMT 1
Post by harold9919 on May 22, 2010 13:34:02 GMT 1
vague recolection of a lani turning over at abercorne sq sanger, i was in sion mills at the time doing the clady triangle, you know the one as resident mugs we used to sit out on the border dug in for a week or so on covert,
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Welcome
May 22, 2010 13:50:55 GMT 1
Post by Frenchie on May 22, 2010 13:50:55 GMT 1
Yep, loved Clady. I was on the arms cache raid on the farm around there. We found a lot of stuff and made the news. Scary place.
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Welcome
May 24, 2010 15:33:27 GMT 1
Post by harold9919 on May 24, 2010 15:33:27 GMT 1
It sure was scary, you should have tried the coverts we did, we dug in at night in the fields and stayed there until relieved 24 hours later, then 8 hours kip and went back for another 24 hour stint all without paddy knowing, we pissed and shat in the dugout in paper bags and plastic bags and took it all with us at relief time, we got some very scary mpments when a couple of kids got a little bit to close for comfort, we thought we had been rumbbled and was expecting an attack at any time, there was only 4 of us at any one time
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