WIX Archives
El Adem .......from the "Tears" website......
Posted by Tony on Fri Dec 14, 2001 01:50:46 PM
In reply top null posted by null on null
On Christmas Day there was a clue-solving treasure hunt where the three cash prizes were stashed in the middle, leg and off stump holes at the west end of the concrete cricket pitch. By watching the others and using a little bit of nous, Alf and I copped the second and third prizes ? not so much because we were brilliant crossword clue solvers, but because we had taken the trouble to run the entire course which took us to a graveyard of old Italian aircraft wreckage well beyond the Equipment Stores and Gymnasium buildings which were well down the road south of the camp towards the escarpment. [There was a real grave on that escarpment with two cloth wrapped person shapes on a stone platform with dry-stone walling around and rag flags fluttering on sticks stuck in the walls].
Luckily for Alf and me, the innocents abroad, and unluckily for some of the faster and craftier old hands, the SWO had been running a check point at the aircraft graveyard and, consequently, all those between the winner and Alf then me were eliminated for failing to check in at that far-away check point. We pooled the money and had fifteen shillings (75p) each ? WOW, riches !! It was the custom to have a competition on the station for the best bar in a billet at Christmas and Alf and I were fetched from our transit room ? the windows were glazed with the sort of stuff you could make for yourself by pouring aircraft dope onto fine cloth mesh (stockings ?) and leaving it to dry in a broad flat pan. We were made welcome in the Signals Bods Bar !!