16/10/2026
I remember guard duty like it was yesterday; that yellow floor polish smell again, the stick man, which I never got at guard mount, there was always someone with a smarter beret than me. Then there were the guard boxes, thrown together by the duty cook.
Every guard box had rock hard sugar and coffee, a lump of cheese, corn beef and tomato sandwiches, that tasted rank because the tomato had made the bread go soggy, and the smelly 10-day old, boiled eggs, which would come back to haunt you at about 3 in the morning.
The lot was probably the rejects from horror bags, or they’d been sitting in the cookhouse for the last few days.
Who can remember being p*ssed off because you’d pulled the 0200-0400 stag, Dragging out that red fire piquet hose hand kart to a pretend fire at the NAAFI.
I don’t know about anyone else, but as soon as we left the warm confines of the guard room, it was head for the block to find a warm drying room, or somewhere we wouldn’t get caught, to have forty winks. What could go wrong!
But sometimes it did, when you overstayed our welcome in the drying room, and overlaid. Then you were in deep ****. Nobody was late back from their stag, unless they’d been sleeping.
I remember trying to get that last hours sleep in before 0500 hours when the lights would flicker on and the bumpers would start swinging. The bean stealing pads would be rifling what’s left of the guard box. The prisoners were already up cleaning their cells and making up the dreaded bed blocks, they thought they’d left behind in training. Then we’d hear the sound of the regimental policeman blabbering out. …’JEFDITEJEFDITEJEFDITEJEFDITEJEFDITEJEFDITEJEFDITE’ as he marches his prisoners off to sweep the square before breakfast, at a stupid pace that no one could keep up with. I know, I tried it a few times.......The funny thing is, I miss those days.
British Army 1970’s 80’s
From the book Bumpers & Bed blocks by Clive Ward www.clivewardauthor.com
Available UK kindle or paper back
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0716FRJXH/ref=sr_1_1