horticulture or what?

Horticulture or what?

Moustache, me grow a moustache? You’ve got to be jesting. Still I suppose seeing I’ve been ordered to there’s not much option.

Let’s just say I was twenty years old coming on 90. Still didn’t have the need to go through the daily ritual of lather, brush and razor. Skin like an infant and they want me to blemish the perfection of youth.

It all started when the HQ were informed that in the very near future, 20 Field Sqn RE and 516 Specialist Team RE were coming to “our” Island to carry out various tasks required to facilitate the coming closure of our wonderful little paradise.

The OC 73 (CI) Sqn RE wasn’t too fussed with the idea of his “Boys” being in any way associated with, as he so eloquently put it, that bunch of rabble that was coming out.

So, without too much chance of success I continued not to shave too regularly. Sometimes in my hung over state, I came very close on a number of occasions to forgetting that I “MUST NOT SHAVE MY LIP”.

It wouldn’t have been too difficult to remember if what was there was visible, but it was sparse to say the least. ( see photo). See what I mean.

After about 7 – 8 weeks everyone in 73 had a very presentable lip of hair. Chatty, more like a very presentable lip of fluff. How absolutely embarrassing, but what could I do? Sadly nothing, I just had to grin and bear it.

Pay Day. Pay Parade. This was before they’d come up with the idea of paying your meagre earnings into a bank account. So we still held the traditional Army Pay Parade.

Everyone on parade, waiting on tenterhooks to see how much they were going to “steal” for Barrack Room Damages. Just another ploy to save the Government some money and give us less to turn into liquid happiness.

Barrack Room Damages. This was a sum of money deducted from everyone’s allocated pittance to pay for repairs to the damage of buildings caused by errant squaddies.

I was there for twelve months, the buildings must surely have been condemned after the 1958 tests. I never saw one repair being carried out. So where was this money going? Maybe it was going into the Flit Fund to keep that maniac airborne.

I digress. All on parade. Each man is called forward in alphabetical order. March to table, come smartly to attention, throw up a parade ground quality salute. You are then given your Pay Book. This informs you of how much you are going to rip the Governments off for this week.

The Pay NCO the checks your name and loudly shouts to the paying officer how much he has got to give you. He counts out the coppers, passes them to you and you check that he has given the correct amount. You then come out with the time honoured phrase, “Pay and Pay Book Correct Sir”. Quick salute, not as grand as the first one because what little they’ve given you doesn’t deserve it.

That roughly was the normal procedure. However, there was nothing normal about this one. Firstly my name being Chatfield puts me pretty early in the alphabetical sequence. It therefore doesn’t take a genius to work out that there are still lots and lots of squaddies standing restlessly behind you.

So, it goes something like this:

“Chatfield”

“Sir” Left right left right left right left right halt, check one two. Now standing smartly in front of table.

A quick salute of absolute quality.

“Six pounds four and sixpence” shouts the pay NCO

The paying officer on this day was Captain Leonard, the 2i/c, a big strapping Regimental Rugby player . He rummages round on the desk and sorts out my next weeks wealth, looks up and stares for a second and then shouts the immortal words so that the entire Squadron can hear “ What the bloody hell is that on your lip Chatfield”

Mortified I reply “my moustache Sir”

“moustache, call that a bloody moustache, It grows wilder on my arse that you can cultivate it on your lip”

My instant and extremely brave response to this insult was a whispered “Bo***cks Sir”

“ Yes Chatfield, and there too”

I’d definitely lost that brief conflict. RE’s 1 RASC Nil.

From that day on I suffered relentless gibes at my inability to produce a hairy lip.