Page 48 - Demo

44was the ideal time to do the wretched exam and so both Mike and I settled down to do so. In the meantime, we got on well with one of the Air Traffic control officers who had a car which we sometimes borrowed for trips to Londonderry. There was no MOT in Ireland at that time and this was reflected in the car. The clutch had burnt out and so you needed a couple of chaps to push start it and then jump in as it moved. To make this worse it did about 4 miles before you had to stop and top up the radiator. You also had to bleed the brakes before every trip but these became progressively worse over time and then you had to rely on the handbrake. On Mike%u2019s last trip he put the handbrake on at the top of a hill going into Coleraine I think and used the gears as much as he could to slow down. The result was that he went down the hill and finally stopped after going through a red traffic light at the bottom. We then decided it was getting too dangerous and gave it up. The owner wrote it off shortly after anyway between the border posts between Northern and Southern Ireland. This caused great confusion in the subsequent paperwork as he was in no-mans land. We had a great time in Ballykelly as it was a very social place with quite a few young officers. Shortly before we arrived the living in bachelors had had a party in the mess. This became a big thing and was much talked about. Most officers and their wives wished to go. However, the bachelors had a list of who was going to be invited and when with the most popular married couples getting their invites first. The last invites went out just before the party started. The bachelors had been round Londonderry and asked just about any pretty girl they could find serving in shops etc so there were a lot of people there. To make more seating they spread some mattresses around the anti-room! The party went extremely well by all accounts but unfortunately the Station Commander was having a small party with some guests in another part