TROOPS’ ENTERTAINMENT

The sight of Geri Halliwell (one time member of ‘Spice Girls’) frolicking on the beach in Oman, did wonders for my circulation and presumably that of The Daily Telegraph in which the picture appeared.  She brought to mind the many show business personalities who, over the years, since World War Two have found time in their busy (and in some cases, not-so-busy) schedules to entertain troops in distant parts of the world.

 Major Dick Taverner used to tell a story about meeting Marilyn Monroe on one of her visits to Korea (Journal No. 31 page 19).  Using ‘B’ echelon 1/WELCH as an excuse to pay a visit, Dick joined some American Army officers for one of Marilyn’s shows.  It was a performance he would never forget because after the show he found another friend (British this time) who invited him for a drink in the Commonwealth Division Officers’ Mess.  This was a popular oasis for ‘dry’ Americans and just as Dick was supping his first pink gin, Marilyn and the entire cast of her show were escorted into the mess.  “I’ve always wanted to be kissed by you,”  said Dick confronting the star.  Marilyn smiled sweetly and then pecked him on his cheek. Dick came back to earth with a jolt when he returned to ‘A’ echelon and had a late lunch of tinned hamburgers.

I was not in Hong Kong with 1/WELCH in 1953 but I remember Howard James telling me about a CSE (Combined Services Entertainment) show that took place when Lieut Col ‘Bun’ Cowey was in command.  Howard was the ‘floor manager’ and was in his element setting up the stage and making sure that everything was right for  a good evening’s entertainment.  Colonel ’Bun’ and his wife, Peggy, made their entrance at precisely 8pm and took their seats in the front row.  The Commanding Officer nodded to Howard who drew the curtain revealing the pianist and the comedian who opened the show with what he believed was a joke to get everyone in the right mood.

    “I say, I say, I say,”  he began.  “I went to the barber’s shop this morning and asked for a hair-cut. The Chinaman tucked a towel around my neck and said:  ‘What sort of hair-cut you want?’  “What sort of haircut have you got,”  I asked.  ‘We got only one sort of hair-cut,’  replied the Chinaman,’It’s called a ‘Bun’ Cowey hair-cut - ‘cos it’s got a hole in the middle.’  The Commanding Officer, whose hair grew in profusion everywhere except on the top of his head, was not amused and ordered Howard tostop the show.  He and the ‘first lady’ left the auditorium and it was some time before a severely chastened comedian managed to get back into his stride.

    The Commanding Officer’s displeasure had, if anything, increased by the following morning when Howard was summoned to appear before him, and got the rocket of his life.

Wyn Calvin, self-styled ‘Clown Prince of Wales’, visited 1/WELCH in Cyprus in 1958 during the EOKA troubles, and again in 1959 when we were stationed in Benghazi, Libya.  On each occasion he was accompanied by a pianist and a couple of pretty girls.  But, although the curves and scanty costumes of the girls were a tonic to red-blooded Celts, it was Wyn who received most applause.  When not performing on stage, he spent his two or three days with the battalion tape recording interviews with soldiers which he used  on radio and TV programmes when he returned home.  He even made telephone calls to families in Wales, before and after his BBC shows, giving them up to date news of their sons.

    Although he ‘abdicated’ as ‘Clown Prince of Wales’ before HRH Prince Charles was invested Prince of Wales in 1968, Wyn Calvin will remain, to many Welshmen who served in Cyprus and Libya, as our own ‘Clown Prince’.

Lita Roza was a big name in show business in the late ‘50s and those of us in 1/WELCH, Aberdeen Camp, Xeros, Cyprus were delighted to hear she was to be the star turn in a CSE show due to visit us in early 1958.  Lita had a figure that was right for the time; she filled her sequined dress as if she had been poured into it.

    At the end of one particularly sexy song, a young soldier sitting three rows from the back, could not contain himself any longer.  He leapt to his feet and, with a combination of grunts and pelvic contortions, indicated to Liza what he would do if she consented to accompany him to the far end of the dhobi lines.  Lita could have ignored his advances, , but she chose to hitch up her skirt, descend to floor level and confront her admirer.  She looked him up and down for a few seconds before pronouncing:  “You wouldn’t know what to do with me if you had me.”

    There were two other girls in the troupe who did a dance routine accompanied by a pianist whose musical ability was impaired by over indulgence with the local brew.  It didn’t matter, the girls wore tight blouses and skirts that revealed more than they covered and that was what the boys wanted.  The following day, the troupe climbed aboard some trucks and set off  on the north west coast road for the camp of the 1^st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers where they were due to put on another show.  One of our soldiers, who was acting as escort in the back of a 3-tonner, accidentally fired a shot from his rifle that hit one of the girls.  The bullet went through her body and out of the windscreen.  Thankfully, she recovered after spending a few weeks in hospital, but this was a case when the show did not go on.

Wherever soldiers are engaged in wars, emergencies, insurgencies – call them what you like, light relief in the form of pretty girls, comedians and musicians are the life-blood of morale.  Dame Vera Lynn stated something when she became ‘Forces Sweetheart’ in World War Two.  She traveled many thousands of miles throughout the world, including Burma, to entertain the troops.  She writes:  ‘Burma 1944.  I don’t suppose many entertainers have stood on a stage made of cases containing Spitfire engines, decorated with parachutes and lit by a ring of lorry headlights.  The piano was damp and huge cockroaches would fly down and hit the keys in mid-song; it was so hot that my evening dress used to change colour with sweat.  We were giving four concerts a day, frequently with the back of a lorry as a stage.  Sometimes men would emerge from the jungle with their weapons and melt away when the show was over.  More often we sang in hospitals where conditions were very poor.  I don’t know how the nurses endured it for so long.  I once walked into an operating theatre by mistake.  The surgeon gave me a bullet he was removing from a badly wounded soldier.  I still have it today.  Many of the boys had been away from home for four years and were desperate for letters and news.  “What’s it like in London?” they would ask, or “Could you give my mum a ring?”  One said: “Please tell them we’re still here.”  No wonder they were called ‘The Forgotten Army’.

Riot Control - Turkish Style

Caspar McDonald was a British expatriate policeman who commanded an outfit in Cyprus in the late 50's called the Turkish Mobile Reserve. There might have been a role for them in the early days of the 'emergency', when Greek Cypriots started their campaign for union with Greece, but as the situation developed, the Turkish Mobile Reserve became an embarrassment for the government.
Soldiers of this para-military force were almost permanently confined to barracks in a camp only a few miles away from Lefka, the largest Turkish Cypriot village on the island. Caspar, the only British officer on strength, enjoyed the hospitality of 1/WELCH officers’ mess where he was an honorary member.
He used to turn up on dinner nights dressed in a black bum freezer (jacket) with tight black trousers and spurs which gave him a sinister appearance. I cannot say that I ever liked the fellow, he was too prickly for my liking but this was possibly due to the frustration of not having a real job to do.
We had fallen out over something or other and were not on speaking terms, when he turned up for dinner one night looking like someone out of the Gestapo.
Newly joined officers, in those days, were subjected to a 'welcoming' ceremony which took a number of forms. The Colonel’s favourite was the ‘group photograph’. This involved setting up two rows of chairs: the front row, (covered by a couple of sheets) for field officers, with the Colonel in the middle, the one behind for captains and senior subalterns while the remainder stood at the back. All the chairs would be occupied except the one on the Colonel's right, which had been removed and replaced with a bucket of water (concealed under the sheet). As we had no newly joined subalterns, Caspar was selected as fall guy for the latest group photograph.
I was given the job of telling officers where they had to stand or sit and when I came to Caspar, I pointed towards the empty chair (covered by a sheet) next to the Colonel, He beamed at the unexpected honour so, carefully adjusting his spurs so he would not spike the officers on each side of him, he lowered himself into the non-existent chair. As he sat down, the others in the front row stood up.
Anyone of normal proportions would have been supported by the rim of the bucket but Caspar was so skinny that he got wedged inside and it needed the combined efforts of the CO and the 2i/c to get him out. He failed to see the humour of the situation and refused the offer from one of the subalterns to lend him a pair of dry trousers. Instead, he stalked off and we did not see him for the rest of the night.

Some days later when his anger had cooled, I asked him if he and his force of mobile Turks would like to take part in a crowd control demonstration the Colonel had asked me to lay on. In an internal security situation such as we had in Cyprus, the police are normally responsible for controlling crowds, but if things get out of hand, the military are called in. There wasn't really a role for the Turkish Mobile Reserve in my demonstration, but I thought I might be able to fit them in somewhere. Caspar was quite enthusiastic and gave me reason to think we might get on with each other in future.
There was a large open area between the entrance to Aberdeen Camp, Xeros and the main road and this was the place I selected for the demonstration. There were two other people whose assistance was necessary. One was Kushi Mohammed, the Pakistani contractor who ran everything from providing early morning tea and egg banjos for soldiers, to tailoring, laundry, provision of any item not available in the NAAFI and short term car rental for officers. His father and grandfather had been contractors to the Welch Regiment for many years before and during World War Two and the family looked upon themselves as being part of the Regiment. I asked him if he would arrange for his staff (all Pakistani) to act as the 'rowdy crowd'; he was only too pleased to accept.
The other person whose help was vital was the local Chief of Police. I asked him to supply the 'thin blue line' in the form of Greek Cypriot policemen. He not only accepted, but was delighted with the training opportunity that my demonstration would provide. There was only one thing that concerned me and that was my inability to carry out a rehearsal; it was impossible to get everyone together more than once.

It was a Scale ‘A’ parade to watch the demonstration which started with an assortment of 'char wallahs' (tea boys), 'dersi wallahs' (tailors), 'dhobi wallahs' (laundry workers), 'napi wallahs' (barbers) and others in the employ of the contractor marching across the stretch of open ground towards the 'thin blue line' of policemen. Kushi Mohammed himself, looking like a real brigand with a red scarf around his head, led the crowd which carried banners with slogans such as: GO HOME WELSHMEN and CYPRUS FOR PAKISTAN.
I was giving the commentary on a loudspeaker and, to start with, everything went according to plan. The thin line of policemen stood their ground while a ‘magistrate’ warned the crowd that if they did not disperse, he would call in the military.
It was at this juncture that a clod of earth hit one of the soldiers who was standing with thirty others in reserve behind the police. At the subsequent enquiry, it was found to have been thrown by a 'char wallah' who had a grievance over an unpaid bill for egg banjos. Be that as it may, it was the signal for other members of the contractor's staff to lob anything they could find at the police and our soldiers. It started as a light-hearted sortie but soon developed into a free-for-all with the police and soldiers under attack from the Pakistanis. It was then that I played my trump card in the form of the Turkish Mobile Reserve who were concealed behind some trees a few hundred yards away. When they saw me wave a green flag, they leapt into action.
They arrived on the right flank of those under attack and without waiting for orders tore straight into the Pakistani mob. Kushi Mohammed was the first to get a lathi (long stick used for swiping natives) around his shins but it was not long before the Turks were settling old scores and lashing Greek policemen as well. We had all the ingredients for a real fight and our soldiers had to stand between the Turks on one side and the Pakistanis and Greeks on the other to establish some sort of order.

The demonstration ended like a fight in a dog show and the Colonel, along with the Chief of Police, were not amused. The only people who learnt any lessons about dealing with an unruly mob were the Turkish Cypriots who were rewarded with free beer when they returned to their own camp.