37
be very stressful. Fortunately, the officers and men were good mid-
dle class lads from the North West and spoke clear Hochdeutsch, at
least to me. Many of them from the coast would have gurgled at
each other in Plattdeutsch. The language problem was provided by
my driver-operator. Instead of my usual Cockney, I was allocated a
rather tired lance-corporal from Perth. I should not complain. He
looked after my bedding, meals and kit and my radios were never
off-net. I find Perthshire the least penetrable Scottish dialect and he
was very talkative. My memory of him is bumping down noisy
side-roads with the German net in one ear the 1 Div net in the other
and trying to understand the flow of Perthshire. He was such a nice
chap and I hadn't the heart to stop him.
At the end of the exercise, the brigadier was kind enough to sum-
mon me, thank me for my contribution to the exercise and hand me
a reading list of German books and authors which he thought would
be of interest. Sadly, I mislaid it somewhere between Berlin and
Brunei, but one day I will get back to Germany and hope for my
memory to be jogged in a second-hand book shop.
This exercise had been a life-changer and I would never view BAOR
in the same light. But my surprises were not over. I was just in time
for Jane to present me with our eldest son in BMH Berlin and my
secondment to the First Battalion 2GR was through at long last.
Hooray!
Major John Burlison recounts:
The Village at Arms Length
In our village some of us open our gardens to the public in support of
parish needs. This is no great effort and it does give a target for com-
pleting the gardening jobs which otherwise get put off. Some people
offer teas and all ban dogs.
Jason at the other end of the village told me that a dear lady once
turned up at his garden with a small dog on a lead. He scowled at her
but felt unable to turn her away; instead he hatched a plot.
