 Davey, how are you brother? I'm fine, thanks a lot. It's been quite a while since we saw each other last. But it was on my run, wasn't it? I think the last time I saw you was in Mussolini Free's home in Shrewsbury. When we picked you up and you insisted we dropped you back at the same spot so that you made sure you did it and didn't cheat in any way. Yes, big shout out to Russ, he really, really looked after me. He got on his motorbike the next day and he made sure I was all right for the next 30 miles. He didn't talk on the back though. No, I wish he had had done. So Davey, friends at home, Davey's an old friend of mine. The youngest Royal Marine to serve in the Falklands, which I think just in itself is a fascinating thing to chat about. And I remember you telling me, Davey, when we stayed in London that time about travelling down there and you were telling me about an old sweat that was giving you some shit for doing your doby or something. I've got a really good story from that. We'll go through that, but it's got a fantastic story. His name was Taff Cooper and we remember on the SS camera. And yeah, honestly, I'll tell you the story about that but I was to tell you what happened last week. I actually met him. We spotted each other and yeah, I'll tell you it's a funny story that is here. Yeah, please do. So what year did you join up, Davey? I joined up to 27th of April 1981. Yeah, joined CTC. Wow, that was back when training was really easy, wasn't it? I'll tell you what, after watching the lads and the excellent machines they are now, it probably was. Were you in training with Terry Marsh? No, Terry Marsh was in before me. Terry was, because obviously I knew Terry from basically what happened was Terry was in the Royal Marines and he was just about to leave the Royal Marines, probably about six months. Once I'd finished my training in the Royal Marines and joined the North Navy Boxing Squad, Terry was on it, but he was just about to leave to go on to professional. Yeah, I got a funny bit about Terry. I think it was my mate H was telling me he was in training with Terry. Do you remember the thing where you used to have to queue up for the phone? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but the train ranks could just cut to the, they would cut to the front. And so friends at home train ranks of someone who's got their green berry. Terry Marsh was in the queue and this train rank came in, pushed in the front and Terry said to him, you know, away with you at the bloke word. No, I would train right and apparently Terry knocked him out. Well, I'll have to ask him that when I see him. Yes, friends at home again. If you're too young to remember Terry Marsh, he was a boxing champion. Was he world champion? He was certainly... Yeah, he was like Royal Marines champion, Royal Navy champion, Combined Services champion, boxed for England International and then ended up obviously training professional and become, I think it was world, like well-to-weight champion in the world here. Yes. Terry, if you're watching, please come on the podcast. It'd be great to speak to you, Royal. Yeah, yeah. So, did you train in any problem for you? I mean, that's young, isn't it? Were you 16 when you joined? I was 16 when I joined. I was eight stone, three, I think I was, when I joined. And there was 58 of us, 276 Troop, junior Troop. And yeah, there was 58 of us. And they ended up with 16 originals. Some, a lot left, but some of the lads obviously left not on their own accord. They obviously injured and got what they used to call 12 Troop then when I was, I think it's called something else now, but it was used to call 12 Troop. Yeah, sorry, go for it. Yeah, so basically there was 58 of us. We got down to 16 originals after the injuries. I think we passed out about 38 because we got people that sort of joined us just for the pass out because they were obviously being injured. And I think we're on, we had no monologue called David Patterson who joined, who passed out with us, joined up with us. He'd hurt his leg, big stuff. And he had to go on the side on this, you know, standing on the side, which it's not a very nice feeling, it's just a standing watch in your blues. But yeah, it's a shame for him. David Patterson lives in New Zealand now. Yeah, it's the mental thing as well, isn't it? Coming back from Hunter Troop. I've had a few lads contact me from Hunter Troop and it's getting back into it and keeping up the enthusiasm and I'm pleased to say I had a few words of them and bang, they've all got their green lids now. That's brilliant. We had some characters in 276. I'll jump forward a bit first. What we've basically done over the last month and a half, we've actually decided, or one of the lads, Brum Tennant, Squid Tennant, decided he wanted to find the lads. So it's 40 years and he decided we passed out on December the 11th, just gone and he wanted to try and get us together, but he couldn't find anybody and then he found me. And due to me and the Sergeant Blackman episode where thousands of people are on my site, we were able to get 22 of us. So there's 22 of us in contact with each other now and we're going to meet up in September and Mickey Rooney, his name, he's the character from Manchester. He now lives in Taunton, I think, scaffolding the business. He was one of the ones where you're in training and you just want to get down the stairs and get lined up already outside of Parade, where you've got your stuff on, with all your wig on, and outside and there'd be always one late and it'd be him you'd look up the window and the windows and he'd be there and he'd just be laughing. He'd be like, when you get your bloody ass down here and he'd just laugh and he'd be like, mate, we've got seconds and for some reason or another, he always used to get away with it. He used to sit there, stand up, jump in line, and then within one second they'd come around the corner and I think, have you done it? He was just a character. He's a brilliant character. You've got to have characters when you're in your training. Yes, you certainly have and you get an interest in makes, don't you? Yeah. People all across the board. Yeah. We've done really well in training. We had a fantastic two Petty Officer, I don't know if it was a Petty Officer, so a Petty Officer PT, Derrick Pierce, Jan Pierce, and to be fair to him, he is what Romanians are today, what he would like to train today. In 81, I'm not saying it's any different now, but in 81, you were not bullied, but they character-built. If you did something wrong, you knew about it, but nowadays it's like, what's going wrong there? How can we fix it? And Jan Pierce was that type and unfortunately, Jan didn't really get on with the Romanians' training team because they were old-style and Jan seemed to be in his head a good 20 years ahead and he had a different way of training people and he became a really good friend, Jan did, because obviously I boxed from the age of, well, I started training from the age of eight, so for eight years, I was a really fit person, I was really good at cross-country, I was a cross-country champion, so I was quite fit when I joined up and I'd had, I think I'd had something like maybe 100 fights as a boxer when I joined up, 80 odd, and I loved that, Jan did, and so I was quite fit and in the end, when we passed out, I was awarded the PT medal, the GPMG medal and the Commando medal and we did a story about, Jan, we actually went for the endurance course record and basically, as you know, the endurance course, you had to go with the other two lads, so there'd be three of you to help each other to get through the tunnel, but once you get through the tunnel, then we could split, and Jan said, once you've gone through that tunnel, we are going for it, we are going to get this endurance course record, I want you to get it, and we were 17 seconds out of the endurance course record and a lot of royals on that and probably civilians won't know this, but at the end of the endurance course record and at the end of the endurance course, once you went into the main gate, you then had to head, as you know, to the ranges and you had to fire 10 rounds off and if you got your 10 rounds off and I think it was the 7 at the time or 8, hit the target, you were knocked one minute off, so Jan is chuffed a bit, he's like, Dave, we're 17 seconds off, we can get down there, we can go and get you this endurance course record, so off we went down to the ranges and I won't name him, but our troop sergeant said, oh, he flew past, he don't need to do the ranges and Jan was like, no, no, no, no, we need to do it because if we knock him in, he's got the endurance course record and for some reason or other, we don't know why they wouldn't allow me to do it, so I was never given the chance to get the endurance course record for the time, obviously being on November, December, in 81. Yes, the endurance course, for me, that's like everything about the Royal Marines, just that test. Yeah, obviously 30 miler, which is a killer as well, isn't it? Yeah, the 30 miler, but for me, I'd never managed to pass and I think we had two runs at it, maybe three and the first one, I was awful, I was literally something like 35 minutes over the time and on that day, I learned something about myself and that is if you don't give up, you can achieve amazing things and I come off that course, I looked at my watch, I was the slowest I'd ever done the actual course and I thought, if I don't, I'm going to get backtreated if I don't pass there, so you get one rerun at it, but I think the 30 miler, because people don't realise this, it takes eight hours for recruits and seven hours for the officers, I actually think we got under seven hours, I think we got six hours, 58 we just got under, because halfway down, we decided there's a tube, we're going to try and beat this and show the officers that we're just as good as a career, only a junior tube, so yeah, if I remember right, we actually got under seven hours, which is brilliant, it was. So, are you a Colonel now, sir? No, I'm not a chance. Not a chance. Yeah, I put one foot in front of the other and then I just didn't stop and I didn't stop and I could sense as I was running through that pain, this is what being a Marine is about, that is it, just keep going and keep going. Did you have it in your head? Like I did, but most people did I think, in their head they counted one, two, three, four, one, two, and just looking at the the steps in between and your head was down and you just didn't sort of stop, did you? And then somebody would say something, you'd look up and oh, it's a water break. Yes, that's exactly it, just a kind of steady plod, but don't stop. Yeah, it was an incredible, incredible experience. I'd like to go back and do it again, to be honest. Yeah. So, David, you went to four, two first? Yeah, but basically, this is where it gets a bit confusing for my head and my jigsaw puzzle and I'm useless, obviously I know you, but your face, I'll never forget because I'm brilliant when it comes to face and numbers, but when it comes to names, for some reason or other, I don't know if I took too many left hooks, but basically I cannot remember names. So basically what happened was we passed out in December 11th and we were sent on leave as you do for a few days and then I was given four two-commando, Bickley Barracks M Company, nine troop. So, I get down to Bickley Barracks and first thing happens is we line up, they're dead nervous, we line up in the troop and the company saw I made it and the sergeant comes out and the first thing they do is they shout, Marine Rob, so obviously you've got to stand to attend, step forward, hand in the air. Yes sir, right, I believe you on the GPMG, C2C, yes sir, ah, they're up, like everybody else, it's yours. So I'll get given it and then it's obviously in January this time. I think it might have been late December, it was very early January and we're packing for Norway, we're just about to go out to Norway for three months C2C did at that time and somebody shouted Rob, you need to go to, Marine Rob, get yourself into the C'mon Sergeant Major's office, you want some word? So I'm right, right, so I go into the C'mon Sergeant Major's office, that looks good. Right, close the door, you're not coming to Norway, I'm like, what? You're not coming to Norway, you've got to go off and fight for the Navy title. We hear you're a brilliant boxer so you're off, you're not coming to Norway, you're not going to go off. Right, okay. So, being young, 17, I was like, okay, just do something for, give him an order. I did go and do it. I just won the the Royal Marines title actually in training, still in training, the Royal Marines champships were on and they wanted me to win the Royal Marines title or see if I could win it. So that's what I did. When I had won the Royal Marines title in training. So then I was sent off to off to HMS Nelson in Portsmouth. Forty Commander went off to do their Norway and whilst we were in Norway I'd been able to go and get the Navy title and then I'd travel with the Royal Navy squad all around the country against Northwest, Northeast, Midlands, you know it was representing the Royal Navy obviously the Royal Marines, we then came back at the end of March and they said right Forty Commander have just come back from Norway, they're on leave, go on leave and get yourself back to I think it was around the 8th or 9th or 10th of April, get yourself back to barracks. So I'm sat there in Stoke and Trent where my mum lived at the time and I'm watching the telly with my mum and all of a sudden it comes across breaking news, Royal Marines and all power troopers we turn to your barracks and it comes up on the TV the Argentinians have invaded the Falklands so I looked at my mum and I said what the hell are they doing up Scotland, what are they doing up Scotland, who the hell wants to go all the way up Scotland, it's freezing, not realising how cold it was in the Falklands, it's freezing up Scotland, always busy down around, no good and yep so I basically listened to the breaking news on the news on the TV and it said because I was thinking straight away well I'm going to get down there, I'm going to get a ticket and it come up, get yourself down to your nearest train station if you haven't got a vehicle and tell them if you are show your ID and you've given a ticket and I was giving a one-way ticket back to Berkeley barracks and that's how I heard about the Falklands war. It's just beyond words mate isn't it, you know just a reality I mean I bet you felt quite proud at that moment you know that you're being called to serve your country. Yeah and the other thing was I was quite young, it's probably naive and I don't think wow we're going to war, we're here you know and I'm going to yeah I'm going to join the Wolverines and then as I'm getting down there and as I joined Berkeley and I joined M company I'm thinking where are we going, who are we with and then all of a sudden same again we're packing our stuff, Marine Rob gets to the company's art major office I'm like so I go to the company's art major office again, close the door again, hi Dave, I say right you're not coming with us I'm like you're having a laugh, he goes you're not coming with us, you're going to headquarters I'm like why and he says basically because you're not art at warfare trained I can't tell you at the moment we're going somewhere else M company are about to go and do something but we've got to keep it quiet at the moment and then obviously a couple of days later I find out that they were going off to South Georgia first, South Georgia and apparently he had to be art at warfare trained but it's a very strange thing is after meeting some of the lads and talking to some lads now and some of them said no I wasn't art at warfare trained so I maybe I find out afterwards 20-30 years later that my mother had decided to ring the company's art major and tell the art major that her 17-year-old son wasn't going anywhere near the falcons he wasn't going to war and she'd come down and sort a few of the lads out and sort a few of the marines out the company's art major partner was laughing his head off and said as far as I can see your lab is fully trained woman's command out and he is more than capable of looking after himself and we will look after him mrs. Bob and my mum basically said to him if he don't and something happens to him I assure you I will be down there and I will find you and I think that's where the saying from that film was come and I will kill you she actually said it and I've spoken to the but I forgot his name I've spoken to the person who actually took the call and he said I laughed my head off your mum was a feisty feisty scouter and I've got another little story which we'll talk when we talk about going back to 40 commando at 40 union last week when I met Colonel Vogue's it's a quite funny story but yeah so basically I didn't go with the M company which was really a massive disappointment to me because the mighty munch I'd only been there a few days but M company was the mighty munch and I love bringing that company and so when you say they sent you to HQ was that with a view to not go into the Falklands or was that with a view to going but being in a safer place I think what it was they put me as the GPMG they actually I actually went to the Colonel Vogue's machine gun as did most of them of course I think we had three three machine gunners in there of course defense troop we went in I've just remembered yeah we went into defense troop and obviously with the departure as well which is another story I'll tell you about when we get in the Falklands I've got my books going to be quite funny but yeah but yeah so I sent with the on with defense troop and then sent down on the camber with the with the guys down defense troop which was a lot of lads who were not all to warfare trained a lot of experienced corporals experienced LF experienced Lads corporals experienced experienced war marines and I think also they didn't tell me but I think because Colonel Vogue's never ever forgets names he's just a wonderful man amazing person and and he'll tell you so but he remembered me after 40 years he remembered my name and and I think he remembers my name because what my mother had said and I think the company so I made him muster hang him and also he wanted it he was like a fire he wanted to make sure that he didn't want to lose any of his youngsters so I'm coming I'm going to keep him next to me close to me and look after him because obviously it was young brilliant the youngest marines I get told I am I was and sometimes somebody said no there's somebody younger but it doesn't really matter we all went down there I definitely went there boy and I definitely came back on that and how did you get down there Davey on that beautiful thing called the white whale SS camber and when you talk about when you say about how did you feel was you're proud um on the camera until the Belgrana was sunk we just had one hell of a party we didn't even think we were going to go to war we just and I thought this is great just war marines this is brilliant life on the cruise with a big cinema you know obviously helicopter lost a pool um taking a pool off us but they look we lost the pool because they put the helicopter pad on one of the pools but um yeah we just had a fantastic time going down I think the the the the only mistake they made the M.O.D was they put they put a 40 commando 42 commando on the whether we were on the bottom deck and middle deck or vice versa but they put they put the powers of the top deck shouldn't have put us on the same ship because we had some battles of them on the way down they should never have never have put war marines and power troops together but yeah that's that's another story yeah we leaping forward a bit there was a I think there was a few ups sets on the way back as well wasn't it because of the blue because of the blue and blue blue on blues yeah no I'm not saying this was the parrots now I think it certainly the sas yeah um well we even we even had a blue on blue on our own didn't we and four five four five yes which I found out about when I went back um 35 on the 35th anniversary when I went back as a guest of honor um we got told the story which happened with four five which is absolutely tremendous yes yes we've had Andy very bravely on the podcast to um I'll put the Falklands playlist below folks so you can um you know you can check out all our Falklands podcast but uh yes that was um that was a tragedy a tragedy but but it's war isn't it and these these things these things happen so and we should give a shout out Davey as well shouldn't because they don't really often get a mention is that these were civilians on these man in these ships well as soon as you started saying that I thought he's gonna save his civilians because what a fantastic there was over 400 on our ship apparently I read that the other day and I was like well never 1400 and then we had Bertie or Bernie or something Bertie and Bernie who were two homosexuals doing they were funny guys and but they looked after us yeah they really did yeah I I think when you guys went or when the unit went ashore a camera march left them with a gpmg and they were like how do we how do we defend the ship cam he's like right take this fucker no okay but but they did they did yeah one one chap I think was on the mv nor norland so the ship the powers went down on yeah shot a bloody albatross yeah yeah yeah yeah I actually read that the book about them going down on the they had some form as well the powers on the way down yes my gosh uh big shout out to Wendy yeah Wendy one of the one of the stewards what a what a what a cracking bloke yes bloke folks you you do the maths but what a what a lovely individual when he was he was um he was you know very attached to the to the men wasn't he you know so when we went down on the Canberra um I was put into a cabin this this is um but obviously I've just come out of training and I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do everything I'm told to do I do because um these are all sweats and I'm just somebody who's in Ed I've gone from M company where I didn't know anybody's name I'm now in Ed quarters defense team where I don't know people's names and and I'm putting to the spoon with this huge huge bloke called taff Cooper and um he's massive and he and he says to me you're going on the top and I was not you're going on the top so I'm on the top bunk and um we run we have to every day we have to train so we're running around the Canberra and as you will know and the Royals know and civilians may not know but four towns around the camera was one mile so we do a four mile the end of the four mile we come back into the cabin and I don't know where taff was he wasn't doing the the the PT he he's gone he's gone off somewhere else and um I go into the cabin and I take my shorts off take me soft so I wash my socks and I wash my Dolby and we call Dolby no I Dolby me socks and I give them really good Dolby and then I get me teacher and I give a really good Dolby and I'm thinking I remember um from CTC where as you know a corporal so 60 in front of a 16 year old that's 58 of us there was just they tell us to go into the heads into the toilets and all of a sudden this corporal just takes everything off strips off doesn't he so he strips everything off and I'm like what's going on here this man has just stripped off in front of me and then he gets in the in and then he starts wash himself every single bit of himself he's washing doesn't he even pulling his foreskin back and clean behind him he's going right the other corporal says um but what you've just seen Corporal Smith do Corporal Ryder says what you've seen Corporal Smith do is wash himself it's called Dolby if you don't Dolby like that we've taught you how to do it if you don't do that you get a basper in the shower and you never forget that so from then on obviously I've washed like every woman I believe every woman is one of the cleanest people in the world and um so basically in this cabin I washed my teacher and socks and I did a good job and I rinsed them out because you can get Dolby rash it's called Dolby rash wasn't it so you get Dolby rash if you don't um obviously the uh the Dolby powder washing powder so I'll get it and as I lift it all up and swing it out I lift it up and I'm thinking when am I going to put this you know is it put it so as I'm hanging it up I'm thinking I can't put it there it's now dripping onto Taff's bed I can't put it there because I was trying to put over the mattress thing so I thought I'm going to have to just put it back in the sink so I'll put it back in the sink and as I put it back in the sink I go off to for some scran on the galley I come back at an hour later as I walk in as I walk in to the cabin I hadn't even closed the door the door was I'm lifted off my feet by one hand by this Taff Cooper and he rams me against my feet I'm the door slams and he says to me you little twat you scrappy little don't you ever and he's holding me one hand and he's pointing to the sink and he's going don't you ever ever ever leave Dobie in the sink again I'm going but it was clean it was clean it was clean and it no he would so I learned my lesson and I've never ever ever left any dirty washing dirty dishes I've got a bed at night and he's ingrained that into my head but yeah that was how I got into my cabin with Taff Cooper mate I still shower like that today yeah the problem I the problem I have is trying to find 58 blokes to watch me I thought he was going to say trying to find it there well that that too that's old age for you mate yeah so um did you uh did you have to stay on ship did you go ashore when when they did the landings well obviously on the way down we did um we did a lot of training and me being gpmg um I was then introduced to sf which is a sustain fire on the tripods uh and we trained and trained and trained and trained and we had to get it I think it was under a minute we had to get the gpmg down sorted out the the sf kit out this big bag big heavy bag pull it out tripod bump set up and aimed and ready to shoot I think there were like brown bags that were blown up and tied and not in the throne into the war um if I remember right and so we did a lot of training on the way down until we got to ascension islands obviously and then we were allowed off essential islands to do um to do some proper fire fire training on the range because there's a range there and unfortunately um I forgot what they're called well they're they're not ferrets what they call the little things that pop their heads up they on the ranges they got there was little little holes and like go go for sort of things yeah and there was a lot of golfers in this sense lines and a lot of long range including myself I feel tired with that if a golfer pops his head up that's probably better to practice training and firing than trying to go at this this this thing that's just sat there doing nothing you know I mean so um we we we had we had to go quite a few golf govres until one of the um one of the corbels told us off until we were allowed to do that when we were doing northern island training up at lid uh we were on a range doing a night night shoot and on the very last shoot of the of the exercise um one of the corbels whispers to everyone right on the on on on the very last shoot everybody shoot shoot the left light on the range you know they got like a red light and a white light or something on top the range to mark like don't fire above above it and um I just remember the range ward and walking back carrying this lamp and he's looking at the range controller and he's just going and he said he said there's 38 O's in this one and there's 27 in the other needless to say some of us ended up in the galley the next day peeling the potatoes and I think I think we I think we got off lightly yeah yes yes so obviously we stopped off this engine um we stopped off in Africa as well sincerely on we stopped off as well to refuel and that was that was um yeah we stopped off in Sierra Sierra Leone and all the all the natives um they um for some reason or other they wanted plastic and very very plastic bottles and they're asking plastic I think they're asking plastic bottles so that they can fill their water obviously you see these things about them having to walk across with it and you know on their heads and walking miles to go and get water that always puzzled me that why would you walk five miles to go and get well why don't I just live next door to the war but that's another that's another thing but they're always puzzled me but obviously they used to ask for plastic and typical submarines in Paris I think it was the power that went over the top of the powers but we we were throwing like bottles but we were trying to whang them on to their heads and things you know laughing but we had I think a power just threw uh he threw over they were on plastic and that plastic so he threw over uh uh sun lounger you know I mean sunk the boat and we're like Jesus all your light you know I mean it's going up it's going over the top but yeah yeah we've got telling off of that as well because they were trying to give us monkeys and and their and their their sisters you have sister sister four ten minutes and I'm trying to get the system to go up the side of the the camera into the big you know big loading door crazy just to get some plastic yeah I saw a fight broke out when I worked in Mozambique um all the kids came round the back we're on we called them shappers like pickup trucks right you travel everywhere on it on a shapper or all your hitchhike and uh all the kids come running up and they're like bottle bottle and one of the workers I was with like through the bottle and it landed on the floor about five or six kids just started battling for it like this ferocious um we don't know how lucky we are do we uh they used to make footballs Davey they get a carrier bag wrap it in a knot yeah wrap another one around it until it got as big as a football and that that was their footballs amazing it's incredible yeah so it was um funny times some sad times going down and then um in the ascension a lot of us got burnt because uh it wasn't it was organized as in sorting out our training for firing weapons but it wasn't organized as in what time we're going to get picked up and like listen lads but it's boasting it's absolutely boasting on the ascensions you ain't going to be able to get back on the ship make sure you got ads and stuff and gee I got a huge blister went right across my forehead uh because when we tried to cool down we thought the only way we're going to be able to cool down is getting the water but the water magnifies so it was even worse it like there was no way there was there was no way to shout you know sort of shelter so I went back down to the camera with this huge within hours and um there was loads of us lined up outside sickbay um you know getting them getting the right bollock and loads of us got arrived bollock and being off and off taking we just went with short sleeves and thought it's boasting in but we were there for some like eight hours nine hours and how did you get ashore did you did you uh did you go ashore did you stay on the ship yeah um basically um got to um just before we got to um exclusion zone um we were told that um we were told that talks were going on between the americans and the british and argentinians he was flying heig I think it was his name heig I think he was flying all over the place and he was trying to sort it out we wouldn't have to we wouldn't have to uh you know land and hopefully turn around um and I think it was an excuse I think what they were trying to um we we kept saying I'm sure we've just turned around or we've just done a huge circle and we kept getting told now and I were doing um um zigzagging we're doing uh anti-submarine drugs but we were sure we were we were uh we were just turning around because it took eight I can't remember how long it took we took weeks and weeks the weeks to get down the foglands I don't know if I'm right but I'm sure it might have been nine weeks but it did take a long time to get down there and um and then just before we got through the exclusion zone the zigzag started getting better and we were like whoa they're saying this is this is definitely and then we found out the balgrano would have been sunk and that's when my my mindset didn't change it didn't think oh we're definitely going to war because I thought but we've given one now they're probably going to say something they'll get off the islands and they'll go it wasn't till obviously um Sheffield went and that's when it was like whoa this is it mate you know get get your head on this is this is for real mate especially when you hear about um you know the lads uh being killed and so um when we when we got to San Carlos um I think it was the night of 21st we got off San Carlos and I was young right so you have to bear with me and there's some things that my way of dealing with things they're in my head and they stay in there end of the incoming article so 21st not the 21st we got to San Carlos with the white whale and we're thinking Jesus what a target this is and 40 commander I think it was 40 and 45 got off at San Carlos can't be wrong but I'm sure that's where they got off at San Carlos and as we're getting off HMS Ardent was sunk and the doors opened and I remember I was I was packing my stuff and opened the lads to pack uh and packing my burger and make sure I've got all my stuff and all of a sudden as I'm bending down somebody smashed into me and I turn around thinking any chance mate not only for that and I thought Adam they're doing doing you know they're doing a rush here so all of a sudden we're all wicked areas mind the doors mind the doors get out of the way mind the doors I'm thinking well so they open the door and I'll never forget um it's both come see both comes and picks picks up the survivors or some survivors of HMS Ardent and they come in and that's the first time I've seen navy lads and that when you're a kid you used to watch a film and the old films like the submarine films and you'd have a submarine and submarine isn't they'd have a white woolly pulleys wouldn't they with a polemic and that was the first time I'd ever seen them for real um and this lad comes up and he comes in and as he comes in he's just soaked and he's dripping wet his his jumper and uh I looked at him and as he walked past me he just said go get the bastard's royal I remember and I said and I just blew it out I went yeah no problem mate and uh as he went past I remember thinking the fucking idea was 17 year old the fucking eight stone five you know I mean the fuck am I gonna do poor fucker and then off they went and they obviously got them wet and dried them out and stuff there at 40 and four five were then let off and then I believe we went round to poor San Carlos and we get we got off at poor San Carlos and obviously me being with headquarters um you're not gonna let the condon office or you know or the the high ranking off first you're gonna make sure you've you've sorted evidence on the land ready and then so we went um not last but we went in the night early hours of the morning some like four or five in the morning of the 23rd I think I could be wrong on the date but about the 22nd um but we went round to poor San Carlos because apparently it was a better there was more soil hills and there was less chance of the the the the odd detainee jets getting getting the term getting the camera so yeah so we landed and then straight away started digging in started digging in and me and a leg call smudge and funny enough I've only just found out is real name first name five days ago because obviously I've gone from them company I don't know people's names to to the defense tube and I'm giving this leg called down smith brilliant at maths unbelievable maths 16 multiple 16s say to down smith what's 365 times time 16 and he go within a three seconds from giving the answer um 65 times 16 give it I don't know how he did it but but he smoked like a trooper and I've always been for I hated smoking so I was like I couldn't say nothing because I'm 17 I'm really a little bit older than me and um so we go down and we um we dig our trench and as we're digging our trench we're all ready and we've got trench going well and we were lucky because most trenches filled up after your first attempt with water so we're lucky and I said to smudge no longer how long we're going to be here for and he says then I said I tell you what so we just keep digging so we kept digging and we made ourselves a little sleeping area so we had the sleeping area and we had the place where he could stand and then we started digging again made it bigger we put steps so that we could step up to shoot or if we had to shoot which we did after um after five six hours got attacked by the jets and then we could step down and be undercover so to speak and then we thought and then so we dug it uh like this this little air sleeping area and then he says let's have a little so we dug this brilliant trench it was brilliant and the way the padre come past he's going hi lads I'm like oh sir and he says nice trench we lost that trench in about three hours three or four minutes trench when you two out we had to come but they're digging over trench so we dug over trench and I'm sure the party pinched it might have been the CO as well or one of the officers but we lost our trench so we dug another trench um started digging and it filled up within 15 minutes of war but I don't believe this so we dug another trench uh and we were able to dig another trench but we gave up just so we dug a trench and we just of cuddled each other when it was freezing cold but yeah but I lost we lost our trench we were gutted means much but um yeah but then obviously we um through the day they found out where we were as well and we started getting um I don't think we were getting attacked I think they were going across to obviously San Carlos where the guys were all the stuff was being taken off and all our stuff so basically there was jets just flying all over the place and you just tried your best with GPMGs um you know put it three or four inches in front of the jet and hopefully it went through but you'd have to you'd have to straight for the for the screen and and trying it in both so it was a wasn't pointless but you know we tried our best in the first few days and just watched all the all the ships getting attacked and the the Navy lads so brave sitting ducks unbelievable yes it is it is and uh as the Welsh Guards found out to their cost yeah yeah yeah that's a different story isn't it yeah we had Simon Weston on the show and uh just um awful awful yeah it is but it's a sore point with the Royal Marines the the Welsh Guards I'm afraid and uh yeah you can't blame the you can't blame the soldiers you have to blame somebody we won't name him but we have commanding officer of Welsh Guards who thought it was bad for him too yeah I do catch up I do remember seeing a documentary and there was a Royal Marines officer who was in charge so the Sotheby Taylor yeah could could possibly but but he was like incandescent that they wouldn't get off and he'd been screaming at them like you've got to get off you've got to get off captain Sotheby Taylor I met him um five five years ago after Sergeant Blackman thing um I met him there and um he insisted that they're there to get off you must get off your sitting duck so the Mr Sotheby Taylor he actually volunteered um to go down the Falklands 10 years before and he was fantastic at sailing yachtsman things and he plotted everything for Roots to go on the Falklands so he knew everything about the Falklands I mean he told them but they wouldn't get off well not sorry the lads wouldn't get off he wouldn't take his men off um well obviously we could talk about later but yeah yeah so basically we um we just waited until we were told to move and then we started moving towards Stanley then I think we went to Teal Inlet first um I could be wrong but we definitely within five six days we caught a pilot um and obviously being headquarters and this pilot was sent to headquarters um and I think somebody would probably say no I wasn't there but I think it was Teal Inlet and in Teal Inlet he had um um he had he had somebody put a thing around his like a band down of his eyes so he couldn't see any of those counters or things like that I think he was just sent into this um like shed like sheep shed or something but he was sent to there and he was interrogated apparently um but apparently Ferdinand didn't say anything so I got on him so he didn't interrogate him enough but apparently he kept his mouth shut and didn't say anything but that was the first time I'd seen one of them so to speak so for two commando was it Mount Harriet Mount Kent or was it the other way around yeah yeah Mount Mount Kent Mount Harriet in fact um I think because obviously I was headquarters then you had L company and K company with us um was doing Mount Kent first but I think the SS if I'm not right but I think but the SS went up and there wasn't that much um to do at Mount Kent they they they don't have run it already maybe seen how many there was I mean they've been there for three months it's cold wasn't it freezing cold man so are they stuck it three months in the train? They's probably worried Davey's going to go up there and hang all your dirty dobby everywhere yeah yeah so yeah so I think there's two then I went first and then I went into Mount Kent I'm one of the worst I don't know if Jeff Williams I think Jeff did a podcast didn't you were? Yeah Jeff's been on the show incredible freezing out the coldest I've ever been in my life I think for four days and I think Colonel Vox actually went and told the hierarchy that if you don't get my men off this mountain in the next 24 hours we are seriously looking at some dead Romerians I need to get them off we had no we had no um no kids the Bergens haven't come forward because obviously Atlantic conveyor been Atlantic conveyor been sunk and there was only one a Chinook left which was Bravo November 2 which is I've sat in that I'm very proud to say I've sat in it I've actually watched it the 35th anniversary when I was going down to the Falklands when I went back and I've actually sat in it and um and now it's in around the corner for me in RAF Cosford nice to be tired um so yeah um like Jeff said when he said it's so cold freezing cold um we're at Mount Kent and I was asked is another thing I was telling you know what I said you you listen to everything you're told by your training team it's in bread um I was asked me and Smudge to go and put a triplet over um one of the one of the edges of um Mount Kent so me and Smudge went off to do this triplet uh and Smudge said what do you want to do I said I said you stick the um you stick the peg in uh people don't know a triplet it's basically it's a peg that you unravel stick on the end you pull the pin out and if they walk into it obviously it goes off the flare and we can obviously mount to attack on um so he put he said I'll stay here so he Smudge was about got up in 35 foot up in the air on this cliff keeping an eye on me to make sure that you know nobody came and I wasn't attacked or some sneaky beaky arches were about so I put the peg in the ground and then I undone the peg undone the um triplet and I and then I put it I put it down to the ground and as I put it in the ground I remember the corporal PWW Corporal Training saying to me and he showed us how to do it whatever you do when you're pulling the pin out for God's sake make sure you you lie down as low as you can you put your you put your arms covering your face and away and you grab all the pin and you you pull the pin out slowly obviously away in case it goes off by accident so I remember thinking that as I was doing it and I'm thinking that's what the corporal to do I've got to make sure to do it right um so as I was doing it it must have been trapped on a piece of rock and something and it went off bang straight in my face and white and smud spotted straight away he jumped 35 foot straight next to me and sunk into the into the ground because it was Peter it was a rendis wasn't it obviously a lot of people with trans foot and he sunk in the ground he got out and he just he undone his water bottle and he just sort of thrown it all on my head and he done that within five seconds 10 seconds and basically nothing happened to me but so close to obviously being caused to act straight away and all I remember thinking is you can't idiot you idiot you just give us away um but obviously the RGs still thought the Argentinians were still there so they probably just thought oh it's our lads and nothing happened but I was nobody ever come up to me afterwards and fucking give me a slap I was expecting a slap from you know somebody would never give me a slap no corporal come on now and I'll side in you know and say what the fucking you know um but I think it may be because because it was down the dip and it was away from it was quite a far away from where we were camped at the time and maybe because we were all fucking freezing cold and you know give us shit but it was cold up Mount Kent and then Colonel Vox got us all moved I'll keep calling him Colonel Vox because now I've found these um um maybe a major general Vox now but yeah well yeah he got us moved off Mount Kent and then obviously headed forward then towards um Mount Harriet yes my gosh did you did you have another flare no no chance there's no no I know well I was doing it then again um but yeah but but obviously if we go to obviously the yomping across because of all the chinooks that have been sunk um we're we're supposed to obviously get um sent across on on the chinooks to get there quicker so that that put us back about I think it put us back a couple of weeks didn't it um so we had to yump and then honestly I was eight stone six maybe nine stone now because I've yeah three months more Marines eat like they just don't stop eating today so I'd put quite a bit of pounds on probably about nine stone but I had a bergen my bergen was gotta have been 800 pound my weapon which is 25 pound my gpmg which weighs 26 pound I had um 260 sixes six grenades 2000 rounds um and a spare which means spudged swapped we kept swapping and the handle of the sf means much and we yanked from there to TLNL from TLNL to to um um Mount Kent but in between TLNL TLNL and Mount Kent we we lost all our stuff I think because obviously we thought something was gonna happen at Mount Kent so we lost our bergens our bergens were taken away and stuff and we were just left was fighting order and enough rounds and the gpmg and things and smudged obviously with his SLR and then when we got to Mount Kent we didn't have anything so we were freaking freezing we were expecting to take Mount Kent and then the stuff would be sent over and I think did Jeff in his podcast uh he did actually say that him and the guys had to go back then they they don't get all our kit yeah they what did they go back in a bv or something back in the bvs didn't they yeah yeah it's a funny story about him thinking he was going across the water and stuff but yeah so I have to thank Jeff Williams for for for bringing us some food and bringing us some warm clothing and docks and things and so when we got to Mount Kent we were then washed and changed and you know dried off and felt brilliant or felt as good as we could um and then I don't like you but since then since that five four nights five days in uh Mount Kent I my wife says to me how the hell have you got a spasthos mouth because we must have drank tea after tea after tea trying to keep warm like I was up freezing your your fingers were stuck to the cup um and I drank red or tea as if it was just cold water and then when I come home now and some of the guys I don't drink tea anymore now but I used to I used to say do you want a cup of tea yeah and within by the time they turn put their sugar in mine's gone they're like bloody hell mate a spasthos mouth I would say to them it's ever since that that four days five nights on four nights five days on Kent and then obviously we then um got off kent which is so I met our chuffed a bit to where but then it was um head towards Mount Harriet then how was the attack on Kent then what did it to be fair I don't know because apparently Mount Kent when they got there the SAS um they might have been some of um um we haven't mentioned Juliet company um you had K company L company and there was no such thing as J company in them days and it's quite surprising that I've talked to some serving members now and they know J they know J company now but they don't realise that J company actually comes from the Falklands it was actually set up on the way down to the Falklands uh and consisted of um MPA 901 lads the original lads that um laid down their arms did not surrender let's get that right um and basically um J company then became MPA 901 because they knew the the ground and headquarters and dribs and drabs and and I actually was put with a J company I can't remember what for a few days that was another thing I'm thinking out of come from them company I don't know anybody I'm in defense too I don't know anybody and now they put me in J company and I'm like these lads geez I remember Lou armor being there I can't remember where I seen him but I remember him being there because I'm remembering um thinking he's seen his face I think it nor you is that that do you had your hands in the air the first one wasn't it when the bloody that rag the sun put surrender on the front um yeah a lot of people friends I'm a lot of people don't know it wasn't a surrender it was uh well they laid down not not that would have when it would have been a bad thing to surrender because it was a good thing to you know it would have been suicide and like it would just be stupid a lot of them were fathers with kids at home just to die needlessly would have been stupid but it was actually a rex hunt governor rex hunt sir rex hunt negotiated a ceasefire now if you keep firing after a ceasefire you're a fucking knob yeah plus plus you're gonna get sent to uh military prison for a yeah a very long time so yes you're quite right to point that out davie yeah and um so let me get this right so was it mount harry after mount ken yes yeah yeah and what what happened what role did you play in harry do we in mount harry it um obviously we were told as machine gunners and we were defense troop and then all of a sudden I I I was either taken away from I can't remember I was either taken away from um defensive or I was or we all became part of it but um our job or my job would smudge was to um take up take up a position uh at the bottom of mount harry it to the side so to speak so you so we're here at the side they've then got I think it's k company on the start line go on the front and then l company come up and our job was to keep the heads down obviously keep quiet and obviously get k companies close as close as they could but as soon as as soon as um as soon as um honey firing started um and I we spotted it our job was to to wherever it was to just keep firing at that non-stop until it stopped and you either got them or they moved were you were you in the sf row now uh yeah I went into sf I stuck in we stuck into sf row I even thought because there was a couple of um uh couple of close ones I even thought of taking my lace because I'd spare laces I even thought you know this sounds stupid but I even thought of taking my lace out because it wouldn't move this sf it was solid I even thought of taking my lace out um instead of sticking my head up and and actually tying a lace and then pulling it five three or four you know because obviously when you fight it when you fire a gpmg it's only a burst of five six rounds you don't because you burn the barrel out or you have to keep swapping the barrel so um I even thought of just tying the lace and just have a club go lock it on to where I need to lock it bum bum bum bum bum bum have a look as you stop lock and I even thought of doing that I thought I would go on to my mummy and honey but um before mount out here we had we had loads and loads of kit and that's when we walked through that minefield due to the Welsh guards not turning up or got lost so we ended up walking through a minefield and as we were in the middle of the minefield waiting for two engineer lads are they two nine or five nine I was I was getting the wrong way around I think five nine five nine are the engineers two nine are the gunners yeah see I've got it wrong way around again typical but obviously we have to wait for the engineer two engineer lads um and all of a sudden we're we're yomping across and we hear um halt halt halt and everybody's holding like what's going on what's going on and all of a sudden it comes back whispering comes back um we're in a minefield and you're like you're having a fucking laugh how the fuck have we got in here we're in a long minefield so um I've got me I've got my burger on and I've got that loads of kit and um I um I'm in this minefield with smudge and we're thinking we're tired so we try and bend down to get the the weight off our shoulders so you try and you stand up and you sort of lean forward as best you can and then the end and we're told not to move do not move you know I mean until these lads come to the front and we're so tired that I just wanted to sit down I was knackered absolutely knackered so I said smudge I'm sitting down and and so I just took the chance stupidly that's what I did was I just um squatted down and then the weight of my burger and so I've knocked knocked me back and I was waiting for the bank to see obviously and then there was nothing else like so I've just laid down undone my straps and just lay there and um I don't know how long it was for but all of a sudden we could hear motions behind this and it was these two engineering lads and they they'd come past us uh and as I went past us I said good luck lads fucking better you than me you know me good luck lads and they were cheering me and so they carried on and all of a sudden um weird like ready to move ready to move like fucking on they've obviously been in front so I'm never forget it's much a tighten me me me um me straps up and I tried to get up and I kept trying to get I just couldn't get up with the weight just couldn't get up so what I did is what I turned I turned and I got on me on me my knees when I pray was putting the five hands feet on the floor with the head and then um I tried to get up that way but I couldn't I couldn't get up so what I did was I said this this morning do me a favor mate um can you stand on my feet so I basically got him to stand on my feet and then he he pulled me up and we got it I eventually got up um I looked and I would lost about 10 yards I was shitting myself in because when it came back whatever you do stand in the same footprint of the lad in front you know I mean so I felt I twat them because I'm thinking you you've lost him you know so um I quickly caught him up and I grabbed all the back of um the lads webbing and just watched close my eyes because obviously in the rum range we were taught cylindrical and um not to lose our sight you can lose your the darkness within yeah your night vision if you can use the night vision within really seconds so when you're on patrol we used to close one I didn't mean if a car vehicle came so that we still had night vision and silly things you remember isn't it so I'm thinking um close your eyes for 10 seconds I went about no but I can you can see better but I don't know why I just so I remember closing my eyes for 10 seconds and losing him again for a couple of seconds then grabbing over them again and and I could see better so I could see his footprints better and I remember thinking I've got to make sure I get the footprints better so I was I was doing the footprints but I was banging my feet in hard because I wanted to make sure smudge behind me could see my footprint because it was dark and the other lads could see my footprints um and then as we are heading towards um Mount Harriet one of the best firework displays I've ever seen in my life obviously HMS Yarmouth if I ever meet any of them guys I'll give them a big hug because they must have pummeled Mount Harriet for at least an hour and a half I was thinking how the f***ing other go that where's all the where's all the weapon where's all the missiles coming from can you imagine an hour and a half a non-stop no no no non-stop no stop just boom boom boom boom and I was thinking and the and the firework display f***ing unbelievable and I was thinking mate if you're up there you ain't you ain't getting out of that but there's not going to be nothing left for us to do so for an hour and a half they absolutely pummeled them and obviously what they would do was was uh softening them up and keeping their heads down to make sure they couldn't see us sneaking around sneaking around the back is what we were doing um apologies which we were doing was sneaking around the back and Valk's wanted us to sneak around the back and come around in exactly where they want us to be and uh yeah that the carnage that the carnage that the uh the heavy guns can create is just well off a ship you know I mean the backwards are the 155mm on the artillery they're bad enough but off a ship unbelievable unbelievable but they did survive didn't they and they did yeah because obviously we we uh we had to uh we had to take more or sorry K company L company and J company and then like I said we were firing once once uh one of the lads was was seeing K I don't know it was K Korn L company one of them was seeing all of a sudden parachute flares went up and then that was it or or that's when I definitely seen the best firework display and I've never seen was that when the lad lad from L company stood on a mine um I don't know because do you know what there's different there's different stories about about what happened to him but I think it might have been um he stood on the mine um a flare went up from the RGs and then that was it as soon as the flare went up they could see it was all potent they could well I could see all our lads all over the place and it was like they sort of took cover and then started doing the doing the um doing the attack and then obviously we couldn't do anything then I felt helpless but basically I tried to fire at them up there until I thought K company or got too close or you know the lads were getting to and then I just had we just stopped and sort of stood and sat and watched the best firework display I've ever seen in my life unbelievable how long did it take to capture a mountain um well it was supposed to be 11 I think it was 11 o'clock on the start line for K company uh but due to the Welsh guards getting lost and not turning up at all they were found by I think they were found by J company um later on but I think one of the roles talked to the government to do one do you know what I mean because went too happy with them um so um I think we didn't the start line didn't go to about one in the morning I mean but we were expecting to 11 o'clock and then maybe have it finished and I don't know what Colonel Vox wanted what his plan was um but it's quite funny because I can't remember the names of his daughters but um two parts of the top of Mount Harriet were named after his daughters operation K company and maybe had operation um I don't know what her name was and then K L company had operations and so on so yeah I read in the book that they were named after his daughters but yeah I think it took we'll put it this way by midday next morning they event the the Argentinians now by 8 o'clock in the morning the the Argentinians were starting to come down um which was another story because they wouldn't come down first because they told that if they were caught by the Romarians we're gonna we're gonna eat them but we're gonna shoot them or we'd eat them we'd interrogate and shoot them and eat them obviously the Argentinian officers telling these fucking ridiculous things so they wouldn't come down um when they eventually come down and um we had we had dribs and drubs and then we had J company bringing loads down and then it was my um my job with defense troop to put the prisoner of war at the bottom of Mount Harriet on a track and we stuck them on the track and we and um and then we called them forward and then stuck them to another part of the track and we searched them and um there's a picture of me in battle for the falcons uh somewhere and the video in the battle for the falcons uh sergeants Brian Evans was our sergeant and defense troop and there's a picture of him at your mouth isn't it um he's got he's got his SMG it's Greenberry on and he's knelt down and he's he's sort of and he's sort of pointing to it an RG who's who sat down on the track and behind him you've got um a lad I forgot his name I was told it yesterday fun enough stood next to me Greenberry on searching an RG and me stood next to him with no berry on and the reason I didn't have me buried was but really looking at was a threat is was because I lost it going to try and bring down one of the lads from I think he was K company who got injured and I could hear him screaming yeah he was definitely 100% K company um and basically I found out afterwards his name was Ian Vincent Jam Vincent and what had happened was he'd been shot through both eyes and then he was he was the radio operator K company or one of the sections and apparently the round had gone through both his thighs and it hit his two IC or their two IC in the in the section of the company his name was Stafford and he was in the Highland he was from the Harlanders and I always remember talking to the K company lads and they all said if ever that lad from the Harlanders should have been a Romanian they they fought the world of him brilliant brilliant bloke and he'd been shot with the same round and he'd come through the ankle and I just heard screams of fucking coming out coming out so I left me weapon and I ran to Jam Vincent and I grabbed him as the as the fire and just all the all this battles going on and I grabbed all of him and he put his left arm I think Smudge got his on his right arm I had his left arm and we were dragging him and the rounds were flying everywhere and we thought fucking I and then obviously we tripped and fell over and as we fell over um he knocked my fucking berry off and I grabbed all of him and dragged him again and we dragged him down to the bottom I got him and then I didn't see him again I've never seen him since and what I found out his name was Jam Vincent in Vincent in fact it was um it was um Jeff Williams actually told me his name he said yeah I remember him really well great fella um and I lost my berry and I was so fucking pissed off because I lost it was only three months old I'd only just passed out in December so it was it was obviously three or four months old and I was fucking annoyed so I lost my berry and I thought I can't believe this so there's pictures of me searching Argentinians at the bottom of Malta area with no barrier and it winds me up because yeah I never I never did get me a berry I contacted Jam Vincent probably seven years ago and um did he have it sorry did he have it no he didn't have it but he's a Man United fan and I'm going to scout so I'm a Liverpool fan and then we ate Man United and then first thing he said was F off you're a Liverpool fan I thought oh thanks for that mate but um he wasn't at the 40th reunion I was hoping to see him but I did see second left turn in turn Stafford and I walked up to him from M company where I was marching and we finished and walked up to him he was the only one with a Harlanders hat on I thought it's gotta be it's gotta be a salt up and I just said to him excuse me sir you were or was you second left turn Daphne he went yeah yeah yeah and I said I've never met you before but either your radio operator Jam Vincent he went oh yeah van Jan I was in myself and never made I said but I out Jan and obviously the other lads helped you to get down in how are you and he was like hey I'm good so that was how I met him the other day so obviously the end of the Mount Harriet it was just it was just a search of prisoners and then we'd have little dribs and drabs come down ones and twos and this is a crazy story this but um we started getting bombed by the RGs obviously we were they're good that we've taken Mount Harriet so they start um bombing us with a 155mm artillery guns I think they were and they start bombing us um and so we're told whatever you do do never ever ever get in a fucking trench that was an RGs trench because if they were as professional as us I think it was one of the sergeants told me he said if they were professional as us they would have took they got three months to take every single coordinate map reading of every single trench now we jump in the fuckers we're dead so you've got to do you've got to dig your trench and you're gonna have to we ain't got time you're gonna have to drill a digger shell scrapes so we um we were digging shell scrapes all that as we're digging shell scrapes or just hiding as we were getting as we were getting you know it's counter attack what we thought we were they were just firing rounds at us um all the lads came to our company Julia and ourselves were just taking cover anywhere rocks and then we decided digging there so me and Smudge dug um I don't know where we got the to be fair we don't know where we got the um spade from because we we didn't know our space we someone's didn't have a spade I must have got it from somewhere I tried to dig a trench uh a shell scrape but by the by the road it was rock hard so what we ended up doing was just building up rocks a lot of the lads did just held it up held in uh ended up building rocks and um and making sure that we could dive somewhere and uh once once we um in between the shelling we were doing the uh the searching I was digging my shell scrape and I swear to god I got a poke on the back and as I turned around this fucking Argentine he's handing me his FN a bit like an SLR wasn't it he's handing me and I shit myself and I screamed out what the fuck and one of the lads one of the lads turned and went to shoot at this argy um I think he had an SMG one of our lads and he went to shoot and I went now and he gave me and he just he was shitting himself the argy and he just went you know and he gave me the gun I was like what the fuck where the fuck's he come from and he just wandered down because they were just scared and he just he just wandered down he just passed me the weapon and I passed it on to one of the lads and somebody took it and put it in the dump where the rest of the stuff was um but that was that was crazy I thought well the fuck's he just sneaked up behind me lads and then pissed me off and then um we started hearing the next the next day um we got rid of the argy's the prisoner was uh and we were sleeping in the shell scrapes and uh we kept getting bombed overnight it must have been obviously the the night of the uh my night of the 12th we were getting bombed uh by the argy's so we just kept taking cover and I remember sitting lying in me a shell scrape with with smudge and we tried to cuddle up and keep fucking warm and um we were fucking freezing and these these rounds were getting closer well they felt like they were getting closer so I zipped me sleeping clean bag up and uh put it over my head and I thought this would protect me I'll be all right nice and warm I'll just so I'll stay nice and warm and they were getting close and closer and I thought I felt something it it's a rock and I thought that's a smudge gone off and he went back there so I'm getting away from here I said smudge don't move I said because you think of silly things don't you I said just smudge don't move because that was close there's not going to be another one the same place they're going to put them in different places he's like that so he he pissed off somewhere about 10 yards away and it wasn't until the morning when I woke up and I said can you all right he was like yeah we've been bombed overnight and then um the next morning um we were just hanging around waiting to see what was happening I thought I heard I heard a vehicle come up the track and I now know it was called it was a symetre um blues and oils at it or some of that or the pongo's at it anyway and um as it was coming up the track Mount Mount Tower is behind me I'm just looking over the distance and over the distance we had our artillery lads um firing obviously firing it somewhere I've been longing or tumbled down they were trying to help obviously the lads were just about to take some of that and longing and looking to my left I heard this vehicle come up and then forget it this vehicle coming as it come up it had a salvage sheet like thing wrapped and tied with rope on top of it and as you got closer and closer I noticed this hand sticking out like he was like reaching for the sky and um as he got closer and closer I thought fuck me it's a it was a body and then obviously it was a it's a British tank and I thought it's got to be a British body because we wouldn't pick up a fucking argy body we wouldn't have tied him on you know disrespectful but we wouldn't have tied him on and made him look like nobody could see him but because of the bouncing and the track and the road and stuff it come undone a bit and his arm was like the the salvage sheet was down his hand was sticking in the air and I remember thinking now afterwards he went past but I wanted to stop him and I was going to get in front and I was going to go stop fucking hell mate get a grip just fucking see him you know what I mean you know what I mean and um but I didn't and I always regret it and I always think about and I think why did I not do that why don't I jump out in front and say fucking hell mate that's a British soldier you know what I mean um and I probably put it down to me being just young and and scared of not being told um you need to go and stop that you know what I mean or if I was an old sweat in the 25s you know 26 but in years I would probably fucking even if Coppola said no down there I'd probably gone fuck well mate fucking I'll fill you in fill you know do some with that body but I didn't do it it winds me up that I never did anything about it and I often think um who was he but every the 12th 11th 12th of June I toast lofty Watts who obviously one of our lads who died and Smithy Coppola Smith who died and I always toast this lad but I don't I don't know his name is good effort mate a stamp just once a year though at the rest you got to leave in leaving a pass comes out comes out once a year and um yeah comes out once a year then goes back in the box where it's got to stay Dave I just want to explain for our friends at home uh we said be the earlier folks for those that don't know it's a snow cat so a track vehicle and uh the gpng in sf roll is as opposed to firing it on a bipod and having it in your shoulder and you do all the movement it's fixed on a tripod and you can just dial in the coordinates and it's incredibly accurate it it it almost becomes I don't know three times more lethal you can pick a rock a quarter of a mile away and every single round will hit hit that rock in fact when I was in training our training team set the gpmg up in the sf roll and they got it hitting this rock so what was it one in fours tracer and it was hitting the rock davian pinging directly upwards ricocheting every round was ricocheting directly up and in uh into the air it's uh a savage uh savage savage bit of kit yeah yeah it's awesome so what was what came next was that the was that the move into stanley well the base around them was um obviously the 12th uh we were then waiting for any orders I was just waiting for them to say when we were moving and then we were waiting for us I assume we were waiting for um long done mount long done um and tumbled down to be taken and then we we'd obviously moved forward and I think three power took long done um and basically what happened was over the next couple of days the 12th the 13th and the 14th um I can't remember the date long done was taken might have been the 13th um but we were just sort of waiting and um just just having wets and you know cleaning ourselves up trying to make ourselves better make sure we had our weapons looking out for any arches up the uh mount harriet another story mount harriet this one this one wouldn't come down from mount harriet I think he was on the 11th it'll be on the 12th midday they'd all been starting to come down now and um this one just wouldn't come down uh I think we got one of the arches to shout up trying to shout up they probably wouldn't have heard him shout up to tell him it's okay you can come down we're not gonna eat you know what I mean and he wouldn't come down and um so an order came from somewhere that he's got to go because he's because he was firing at us we could hear the no we'd finished mount harriet we'd searched him all and everything's fine and this little fucker kept firing us we could hear the ping you know when it's getting close that that's a fuck ping and then somebody said I think there's a sniper so we all have to dive the cover and look and somebody spotted him and they said let's take him out crazy but just just then I think afterwards all you have to do is come down you're fucking told to come down you believe the shit that you know you the officers have told you when we were when I was searching in Argentina at the bottom of mount harriet he came forward and he was probably only he looked young well I was young but he looked young and um I'd never been taught how to search people so I just kept watching the lads either side of me you know what to do they were a bit older than me and um I didn't call one forward first I wanted to watch for a couple of times to see what he did properly but I didn't want I was member thinking I've got to make sure he's got nothing you know I mean make sure every nook and cranny so I'll call this lads forward done a couple and then I call this one lads forward and I said to him hands up and he walks towards me hands up and I packed him down his arms and I put me down his arms one of his armpits and down his front looking in his bollocks and stuff make sure he ain't got it in crutch and stuff all the way down down his ankles well I turned him around that's a turn around and go down his arms I felt someone in his back the fucks that that's not right so I turned him around I went the back and he fucking faced as he went right so I said lads there's someone in his back and um the lads next to me um turned the SMG towards him and he this RG shit himself and I went no no no that's how I turned him back and I lifted his top and he had a big bag of sweets plastic bag full of sweets wrapped around this like cloth brown very low camouflage cloth stuff under the cloth and pull this massive bag honestly it was quite big and he's full of chocolates toffees and things and I looked at it I turned him around I went and he and he looked at me and I looked over his shoulder and his mates fucking out of looks could kill and um I searched a vestibule give it a bag of sweets and uh lads he was next to fucking commonplace name and um I turned around said sit down he sat down as he sat down he got a dig he got a dig in the back of one of the lads and they were all muttering fucking turning spanish for everyone's and I thought I grabbed the sweets and I grabbed a couple and I passed them down to all our lads I filled each other by that as well because they were if you knew his sweet you know I took all his sweets and give them to all our lads and we're like fuck you off to bits somebody got rollos and stuff and um and toffee and um yeah and and then I thought I wonder what happened to him whether when he went back on the camera or wherever he went back whether he got you know whether he got filled in for fucking having a bag of sweet he must have had a bag of sweets for one week some months and just kept him hiding to himself and having them at night because they were starving weren't they he's probably got no teeth left now mate it's they've all rotted out yeah yeah yeah he's got ever since he nicked his sweets he's just can't stop eating them yeah yeah so basically um the 13th um they must have talked about um longed in and tumbled down and uh and then the 14th we were expecting to to take over from them and then he just come through i don't know who told us we just did just start come through um they've surrendered um and then somebody was saying they just come off somebody just come off a map off one of the mountains and spotted white flags and they're funny enough because obviously you see that famous saying that the white flags flying over supports Stanley bloody marvelous i remember that bloke saying that you know i mean he was from the girkers one yes and he was the same age in the girkers i think but yeah i remember that and then obviously it was just it was just uh pack your bags uh unload get your stuff away nobody's fucking allowed to fire any round or you'd like you said you're in the shit um but um most of the lads said i'm not long loading so we still loaded but we didn't put up the shaft you know we didn't put the bell and we had it on safety um and then we just we what we we umped into Stanley but um because we were i think what the what the i hear what the the plan was for three power and the girkers and the scotch guards to take the hills in front of us Mount Farrier and then we were to come afterwards and then the roamings were supposed to be the first ones to march into Stanley so that they could take back and it was to be mp81 lads you know with four two and all this don't know two of this but that's what i was told that's where the plans were um but apparently when um Longdon was taken by the powers and they started running down the track and legging it and apparently the powers and i've heard this from some of the powers as well instead of taking the Mount Longdon then stopping they carried on going down the tracks and following firing and killing them and even overtaking them and they were actually in front of the arches when they they actually overtaken them and um and there was orders to uh a sergeant major sergeant to to stop and get themselves back to to Longdon um but they they ignored it because i i heard this one power actually say i told my sergeant it's on the radio we've got to stop and the sergeant said no fucking we're going to be the first in and that that's that's how they got into into Stanley first but we didn't we basically yomped and now i've been back and now realize what we did apparently we came over the top i went through a golf course i didn't even know there was a golf course on the fucking Falcons we came around the golf course and came down round round the the back at the entrance of Stanley and you can see i think you can see Moody Brook in the distance because when i asked what's that over there and they said that's Moody Brook um and as we come in we can we came to the hangar there was a there's a hangar a plane hangar which was used for i think it was used for mail and just for things but that and that don't know where that had gone i think the arches were using everything but this this hangar was just covered you've seen the picture in thousands and thousands of rounds and you're not going to believe this now a lot of people you know when they say they were on the um they were on the balcony ss i was on the balcony that must have been fucking 12 000 people on that balcony but that um that hangar there was j company in it l company and k i think and us headquarters now we came in and as you walked into the the door you could see all them all the all the where the rounds have been it was that that way and and i sat down next to a lad called mossy um i don't even know if he was in headquarters but i got told his name was mossy cracking lad and i'd seen him on and off over you know i was being gone yomping and stuff getting getting to there and um he sat down and i sat next to him so he's here he's facing that way and he's doing something he was i think he was um he was gpm j's when he was doing somebody's rounds and i was sat next to him behind him and i bent down and i was doing something and as i bent down looked somebody was taking a picture and i remember thinking what can i do that big picture with that light coming in because it was because the light you could actually see on the ground and then years and years later that picture's quite iconic now it's a good picture in it and i'm then probably saying the fucking wasn't you you'd say you were on the balcony but i'm fucking 100 percent sure well that's but it's a thousand percent mossy everybody says that's mossy i'm a thousand percent sure that the one behind him with the silhouette but you can't see what it is is me but um it's nice to think that we got we got some shelter we actually got some shelter instead of the trenches um in stanley and it was one of the best places that we had really except for the uh the sheep shed as well which i think was in teal inlet we got just but we had we had to sleep in this sheep shit in teal inlet and that's where that pilot came i think um yeah so we were obviously in that anger and then it was just wait for orders and i think the next day um we were just wandering around sort of getting orders to to go and grab a couple of arches and tell them to pick up this body that had been found because as we as we were yomping in we we could see argy bodies on coagulated sheeting that had just been put placed on top of them just to sort of try and hide the hide that hide them and you can see their arms sticking out and their legs and stuff um in funny shapes so you think fuck how did you fucking how's your body got that shape and then um so one day i think it was probably for for maybe the 15th or the 16th couple of days after um we're in the anger and i fancied a wander around i wanted to go and look round um because we were just chilling in the anger we weren't doing anything that time so i went out and i went out with i think it was a core blow sergeant and i went out with him and he was experienced fucking see my name my names i'm shit if i remember his face i remember i'm shit at names now too many left hooks and i went out with him and he said come on we're gonna have a we're wander around and i think he took me out to show me around to to train my body to what i was about to see even you know because i hadn't seen i've only seen that one on the cimeter i didn't see what some of the lads of k and l and goose green and things they'd seen and baynets and things because obviously we only sort of kept cover for and on bountary so i think i don't know because he thought i was young i don't know if he thought i'm gonna take him out and i need to toughen this little shit up and then we kept on walking we went and looked around the three trenches there's a couple of bodies by the trench and they've been covered up and then i spotted this plastic bag and then i bought some binoculars off the camber i don't know why it's a stupid thing you do i bought some binoculars and they always had them with me they were in my bag and and i spotted this plastic bag and it had binoculars in and i thought i picked it up and i thought absolutely binoculars are fucking i've got a pair of them so i threw it away normally i'll they'll find out once later that they were night vision goggles that the rgs and they were fucking brilliant and everybody wants to know i'm throwing them away gutted so we woke up the woke up the the hill a bit more and then i spot this torso this argentinian with his arms all over the place and he he's um he's looking up and he's and he's he's either wide open and it's strange there's this torso two arms and a head and he's out he's what he's looked and it's raining this is what was getting in my head i can't understand it's raining right and it's raining quite hard because all of a sudden it's gone from sunny it's fucking raining in my focal length because that's what he did and as i walk up the hill that spot him and i'll see the set the faith this the shape of him and everything i'm thinking that's fucking strange shape his eyes are wide open so for some stupid reason i tried to close them like they do in the movies and they wouldn't close i thought i can't leave fucking eyes and um they wouldn't close and then i remember looking up i'm thinking fucking hell i can't keep my eyes because the the rain was that hard i couldn't keep my eyes open but i remember looking at him thinking why are you not closing your eyes because how are you doing that so i looked up again and i thought i'm gonna see if i can keep my eyes open don't know why so i looked up and i went out and within milliseconds i just couldn't do the rain was too hard and i kept closing i was thinking so i got me i hurt my fingers and i went out and i still couldn't keep them on i kept closing so i rubbed my eyes and i thought that's fucking makes sense i knelt down to him and i tried to close his eyes and they just wouldn't close pissed me off because i wanted to try and help him because it was raining you could see i could see the the main drops banging into his eyelids weird eyeballs somebody shouted it's one here can you can you put some cover over him so they put a cover over him and that was basically it so i went back into the back into the anger and then over the next few days we just got orders to to go and go into stanley but i never ever got in more than 30 yards into stanley from the edge um the moody brook edge and i never ever got into stanley so i never seen stanley in my life never seen the lads saying they went into the pub the globe pub was on a double hotel the other pubs and obviously government house and things that i never could see any of that i never ever seen any of that the only time i think i remember going through is when we went back onto the camera but i remember talking to an argentinian sergeant who could speak fantastic english and i was sat down talking to him and i was like you know are you happy about being here and he was like well do you when i said fucking now he said jesus because you speak brilliant english and then i said how come you speak really good english he said well i used to live in england i went to university cambridge and um my wife's english and i've got two children baby one sat so he'd lived in england yeah he'd lived in england he'd gone to cambridge university he spoke brilliant english he asked me what term i sported and um if i'm if i'm right argentinian just been knocked out the world cup and we were laughing all the roads were taking the piss and the powers were laughing heads off because argentinian just lost in the world cup because the world cup was on time wasn't it and i think they just got beaten they were knocked out and we were all in stitches laughing and um but yeah yeah he had two kids he went to cambridge university and then he had an english wife and they lived in they lived in um argentina but i said to him where's your where's your wife's and children he said in argentina and i i thought jesus man i bet she's she's having a good time there fucking english person with two children i mean probably speaks good argentinian because he looked like he'd been married quite a few years i think his kids were somewhere like seven and nine and um yeah but yeah yeah because we were so basically um lots of things obviously went on different dads have got different stories of what i went on in stanley but i just remember being so stinking and and what a mess they made and you know no respect for you know and just shitting all over the place and so basically for the next couple of days well until we left and went back on the cambra and we got them to clean it all up and send them all down to the airport which i didn't obviously i only went about 50 60 yards i did i was there um i think a load of loads of us and loads of us scattered around let's lay down because a 500 pound bomb had been found near moody moody brookie hadn't gone off and so the bomb disposal team were actually over there and it come around word come around there if you always come out of the anger a load of us come out and sat on the grass and watched this um this bomb being you know controlling exploded and um i remember going off and you could see it coming off and then within three seconds the uh the boom the boom through the other sound came two three seconds after it was a fucking big boom i was thinking shit that 500 pound bomb man and that the other 500 pound bomb was going inside the uh the one they've shipped in me and i was thinking fucking poor lads man yeah one of them went off didn't it when they were trying to disarm it yeah i think i'm not too sure yeah i don't know what ship that was in my yeah it wasn't the ardent because i think the ardent that was the one that uh broke into a v and burned in the night because that's obviously i sin that um i'm i'm not too sure whether i've seen it on cambra obviously from the night when they come onto the ship or whether it was the next well they're definitely the next day i've seen it in the light and it was just just like a v in the connetto and well when sheffield got blown up that's when it when that's when it struck but yeah it was terrible to see h miss ardent like that yeah i think ardent i'm just looking now i think ardent rolled over and sank i might be yeah i might be wrong was it there was coventry the coventry coventry um sheffield was it and the antelope yeah antelope was the antelope there was a like a v yeah i'm just having it with sick with segala had wasn't there and uh they're well they're well into the not well but they were quite a few days into the into the into the war and i call it a war do you know why i call it a war and people call it a conflict some which winds you up yeah well everyone calls it a war now don't they there was some weird you know why i call it a war go on mate uh because back in m company when i was told i wasn't going to the um to the foglands um when i came out all the lads were talking about how old are you and i said 17 17 off and they went you can't come and i went what you mean i can't come they said you're only 17 you've got to be 18 to go to war so i actually went back into the salt major's office and knocked on the door and he said what do you want i come in i said um am i actually going and he went what do you mean are you going and he gave me a bollocking because he thought i was sort of bottling it he thought i didn't want to go and obviously with my mum ringing up um he thought fucking i've got somebody's bottling it here and the um he said course you going i said well can i just ask a question he went yeah he said course you can i said well how come i can't go to northern ireland until i'm 18 but i'm going to foglands and he went son the foglands is a war northerland is a conflict you can't go to the northerland because it's a fun conflict but you're going to war and you can go to war at 17 months there's 17 years and six months and you are you are that so you're you're going now get out of my office and i fucking did and that's how i i always call it a war now because he told me when i the way i was if i'm told to do something i do it if i ask somebody to do something they don't do it they get one chance they fucking winds me up and it may be just the way we've been taught you know what i mean revive fight i'll do do what you told me five minutes early and yeah he said it was a war so to me it's always been a war what what happened then david between you being in port stanley and and did you go back on the camber yeah i went i went back on the camber but this time obviously the mo d or somebody had a obviously had a good thing we think and four five came back with us so we had four five four two and four four on the camber and we had the i think the powers went back on queen lisabeth and some back on the norland but we had we had the better the better trip back because we just partied non-stop and i'm funny the funny thing is like i said you took ages to get down there it only took nine days to get back so we then know that all this story is about oh we're just turning around because we might be heading back on there weren't two that they were doing zigzags and turning around because they were just wasting time trying to they were stalling yeah were the americans were yeah hey was it poindexter as well i yeah i know i remember that hey yeah hey um they they were trying to negotiate something that it didn't it didn't come off so i went back on the camber and i had a right laugh because on the way down there's a bloke called moz tombs people know moz tombs i met i i didn't realize who moz was uh i met him into the sergeant blackman um i think we did he used to bring loads of coaches down he was brilliant he owns a pub called the found the arms in the pool brilliant lad and i didn't realize that moz tombs was the lad that was on the mic on the way down to the folklands that sang we're all going on a pusses holiday we're all going to kill a speckled tomb and it was him and um it wasn't i think it is that's moz tombs and um yeah but we had a part a good part on the way down then he got serious um and i came back as a man and then um we had a party on the way on and then the best homecoming you've ever seen in your life you know women with boobs hanging out with me me 17 what are you know me what um were many of the lads badly affected on the way back or is it too early for it to have sunk in yeah do you know what the funny thing is there was a lad called paul tinker who i passed out with and he was he was either in the he was in the next bunk to me and we all because we passed out together we used to walk around the canberra go for meals together and everything and um i never heard of anything i think we just come back just so it seemed to party but last night i was talking to paul tinker because he's one of the lads 22 that we're going to be meeting um after 40 years which is great and um i was asking because i'm trying to put my jigsaw i'm trying to get it in my head everything's right you know it doesn't feel like i'm telling lies or things and um he actually said yeah he said the lad in my bunk he said he was the one that was having really bad problems and um um you know obviously couldn't take it and ended up going to um to the to the medics and got to go and see a psychiatrist i'm like hey i'm never hearing that much but i never heard of anything but obviously there was there must have been things going on um on the way back and um i can't blame them because me sometimes i feel like it doesn't feel like i was there because i didn't see obviously i sin i sin jan being injured and me dragging down i sin that poor soldier on the on the cemetery um i sin the poor lad um by the hangar up on the hill um and then the bodies around obviously covered by corrugated sheet and stuff like that but i am i never really sin anything what i call as bad if you know i don't mean i don't if you so sometimes i i know because i was young sometimes i don't feel like i was there but me and my wife went back as guest of honor because the the falklands government invited me back on the 35th anniversary um which is really nice of me i got chauffeur driven i got really looked after in the falklands islands people just love you to death because you're a veteran and that when i went back and um we went to mount harriet and me and my wife um walked up mount harriet and um it'd been the first time that i'd sort of been to the top of mount harriet because i never got to the top because i was obviously giving fire and cover fire for the lads going up there and um so it was nice for me to go up the top and see things there's a lot of things still up there that people shouldn't be touching they should leave them there you know i mean like comms and stuff that but my wife i was saying to my wife like this is where they did this this is where they did this this and she went babe i said what she went it was you as well and it's sometimes it doesn't it doesn't i don't know if it's a good thing because it's it's stuck in behind in the back of that brand and it's in a file cabinet and it's staying there do you know i mean so maybe it's my way of dealing with it i say they went so yeah it's strange but my wife was she was really annoyed she was like babes you were there as well i'm like oh yeah of course it was you strange yes yes you well you you're definitely you're definitely there davie um and tell us uh what what was the feeling then when you pulled it pulled into south hampton well obviously um i don't know if you know um we pulled in a day or yeah quite a few hours early um outside south hampton so we had to dock outside and then we're like why have we stopped we weren't expecting these thousands hundreds of thousands of people we thought we just get docked and get into the show put the kit back and get back to bickley banks and wherever we were going and then we pulled up and looked outside and and dropped anchor and then we got told by the captain that obviously tomorrow morning i think it was 11 o'clock um you're gonna um dock at um i forgot the name the dock now you're gonna dock um in south hampton and there's so many people come to see it's going to be fantastic we're like oh brilliant tonight so we just spend the night drinking beers contemplating looking over the over the barrier obviously and just looking into the distance of fog with the uh south hampton lights i'm waiting for the the day to come the next day and then obviously the next day was just flotilla of boats after boats after boat and women get their boobies out flags flying and oh it was amazing um what did you did your parents come down there yeah my dad come down my mum come down um my little brother me sister and my brother came down well i think they all came down to be fair in the car and apparently it took them absolutely hours and hours and hours to get down to bless them but when they got there they got there um sort of late they we were coming in they got to see the top of the ship if you know i mean but they didn't at the camper but they didn't get to be at the front where everybody and it took me a mobile phones them day took me ages uh to tell her i think what they were doing over the tunnel was saying right this is a company coming down this is so and so true and so you can grab them let's get out of the way um the funny thing was the night before we had a lot of souvenirs didn't we a lot of lads had souvenirs i mean some of the lads had some of the lads had a gpmg argentinian gpmgs and um and ffns the slrs some i had a grenade but but i disarmed it and what it might say i had i had a round like a green grenade which i disarmed one of the lads um we disarmed them together but we all had one each crazy and i had a nine millimeter pistol still in the packet brand spanking never come out and a couple other things and um we threw them over the side actually threw them over the side um because we got told that the um that the customs were coming on the day that we we came out the customs was coming and uh they were going to search us all so and that night before in between drinking beers the amount of stuff that is outside and down in the and southampton is unbelievable there's everything down there everything i haven't had one lads said he's got a bazooka like some sort of bazooka i was like what the things we threw over the side unbelievable well obviously the next day was one of the best days of my life listening to um the war marine band playing and watching the thousands of flags and things yeah amazing amazing but i didn't actually go home going back to bickley bags and because i was head cause um i think i went home five days later we didn't go on five days most summers didn't go back we went back to bickley bags we had to clean it all the stuff put it away and every square everything away because you know normanians are on alert 24 remember did you go shore in guzz in those five days no no i just all we did is clean clean clean um cleaning bickley bags didn't do anything and then no and beyond if you remember right there was a there's a train strike i hadn't passed my chest so i didn't have a car there was a train strike so i couldn't get home can you believe it so i hitchhiked and i actually hitchhiked home from from the fogglings tell you what yeah anyone would have put you up there right you're not going to believe this but i had um union jack shorts on romanians um t-shirt with romanians on the back um a little tiny bergen and a backpack um i'm a greenberry i put the greenberry on i put it on purpose to hopefully get a lift and probably i think from about half an hour from plimuff to stoke where my mum lived i got a lift from there to stoke by a by a lobby driver and he just pulled over sway away and he went you greenberry made one yeah he said fucking em romanians did well i said that was me i was one of the youngest getting my kink out he said and he took me i don't know the hell he was going he didn't care he took me all the way from by half an hour from plimuff all the way to stoke and the funny thing was i told me when my mum was coming home and she had a street party for me and there was banners all along the streets with romanians and welcome home and well done davie you know this and he dropped me my mum lived in the culmination street like culmination trial road so you've got a road where there's loads of colleges it's called shelton it's called shelton where the colleges are and then you've got a road which people might know if they live in stoke you've got the road and then you've got culmination street houses rows of houses then the other end of the road was the garage he dropped me in the garage right so i'm obviously go along the roads find out the name of my street benefit street it was called and turn in and as i'm walking up they're all facing the other way everybody's facing the other way and they're all getting ready to clap and sing and cheer and everything and i walked up to my mom which is facing the other way and i tapped her on the back and i went romanians sneak your beaky around the back mom and she went fucking hell he's here and they turn around and they all give me a cheer and give me a hug but i came the wrong way i'd sneak him around the back but yeah that was my sort of homecoming David it's an incredible story um i don't want to finish though without just touching on your your firefighter career um just you know can you just tell us in brief did the carnage you saw in the falcons help it help you for the the carnage you saw in the fire brigade yeah well obviously i left the romanians in 88 very beginning of 88 the term professional i desired it i was doing really well i'd i've been chosen for the cornwall game chosen for the um the the olympic squad but not the gp squad that actually went i didn't get picked for that but i trained with the gp the trained with the olympic squad lost olympics as i was doing really well so i decided to leave the romanians wish i hadn't but i left the romanians to turn professional boxing and i did quite well i did really well to be fair and but i kept getting cuts like Henry Cooper so i went and boxed down in um um i went boxed down south on in a pier and terry marsh was there let me tell you marsh former romanian will champion um firefighter who unfortunately got kicked out of the fire service because they thought he had epilepsy um but he didn't he was basically he was um dehydrated too much and he fainted um because of his fights and he became world champion he was at the show and he said to me join the fire service why don't you join the fire service so i joined the fire service uh because he told me it was two days two nights four off so in the days i could train night in the night i could train in the day and on me four days i've had four days so i could train every day to be a professional boxer so i joined the fire service and when i joined the fire service straight away we have a really bad really bad accident um involving two girls in the car and um it was my job to to to hold the head that the roof had been taken off my job to hold the head um while stay cut the seat belt and remove these two girls and put them into body bags and um there were a lot of mess and straight away one of the lads come up to me and said you're all right mate you're okay and i said mate yeah i'm fine don't worry about you said yeah but you know i mean this is your first job and i went no offense mate but i was in the romanians i went down the falcons i said to me this this is all right and he went all right cheers mate and as he walked away i said i bet she's got fucking headache started laughing and he'd burst out laughing and that's the way you have to deal with it you know i mean when we went back to station at the end of every uh holidays they say right lads we're having a debrief right outside the fire engine now after the jobs are finished they'll get you beyond the fire engine they'll say right a big debrief this is what can we do anything about a 20 minute spiel and then they'll go back to the fire station they'll have a chat around the table but we used to just go back to station if we don't to the chat we chat but we just make jokes about it things you maybe shouldn't have done on some of the things but you had to it was your way of dealing with it and that's the way the fire service dealt with it then they probably deal with it a lot different yeah the fire service helped me to deal with what i'd seen and to be fair fire service to me was like just a job to me was nothing to what even though i've seen some terrible things in the fire service um they're both the same really i suppose but they did help me 100% it helped me well what was the what was the worst thing you saw davie um i'd have to say um we've got basically i seen um a girl who was pregnant her mum and her sister all in a house fire which was which was um set fire to delivery by um her ex-boyfriend who needed to get rid of them uh due to um she was 15 at the time so they told you she would she'd already had one child and she was um and she was 15 with another one and so that tells you the reason why you need to get rid of her i won't say no more about that that was the worst one going there um and basically seeing that i'm not going to go into it because obviously a lot of people um the way where i live um they remember that fire it's still it's still in in the in the news today over some other reasons um yeah because if he's trying to get out he's trying to get himself out of prison he's in prison for hell of a long time but uh yeah and i don't want to bring any bad members up to them people but yeah one of them actually um was the uncle of one of the girls and i didn't even realize he was he was my friend was one of the uncles which is a shame but yeah i've i've seen kind of a lot of bad things in the fire service i've had 20 27 years in the fire service and the reason i did that was because i had five years 35 days given back to me by the fire service so the fire service just by the romanian sorry the fire service is part of the romanian's discipline and same pension scheme so i was allowed to only do the equivalent to 30 years and then i could leave the fire service after 30 years so i actually only have to do 25 years or to a certain age and so i did 27 but yeah yeah it did help me it did help me the romanians helped me yeah yeah i i just wanted to get an example from you davie because it's all too easy for those of us that sit at home and don't do a job like that to yeah you know i was at the school fair the other day and the fire brigade turn up like they do and the kids climb around the engine and and you you forget the absolute seriousness of that job we had a where i where i one of the places i grew up as a kid there was a car full of youngsters like literally they were all in their teens and it come round the corner too fast went off the road smashed for a fence and burst into flames yeah and i remember my dad saying it was all this screaming last night and i was woken up and i was effing and blinding because i thought it was you know yobbs mucking around yeah turned out that this had happened my mate's dad was uh it was a village so they're all like standby firefighters right yeah retained yeah retained yeah and uh my mate's dad had to go and deal with it and they they were all trapped in the car they couldn't get out so none none none of them lived yeah it's just insane i think your mate's dad and and literally my mate lived about 400 meters from where it was so my mate's dad had bloody bloody deal with it and it's um yeah i was told by the lads when i when i left the romulins and joined the fire service um we'd have um because you were allowed to sleep rest period between 12 midnight and 7 in the morning uh because we did 15 hour nights um but you never slept because it you're always you're always ready to be going down the pole within and in a fire engine within 15 45 seconds at night 15 seconds in the day and um we used to come down have a bite to eat breakfast in the morning they used to say to me f**k you know mate you did some shouting you slept last night like what and they go what the f**k's right flanking incoming take cover all right okay f**king start laughing and the back apparently i was i used to shout bite flanking incoming take all the time and then one day come down they went oh you you didn't you didn't shout last night or you didn't know of some gradually it stopped uh yeah but that was my sort of the and if i went to another fire station sometimes they'd be short and they'd say right davie you got to go over to shoesbree or you got to go to wellington fire station go and cover for the night they'd say f**king do you ever shut up scouts certainly in your sleep as well but davie brother this has been an incredible incredible chat thanks so much for sharing your story um and i don't know what i i don't think you're supposed to say congratulations on your 40th anniversary but you know what i mean yeah you know i i hope it's um treating everybody alright i hope it's i know there's been some quite a few reunions there was one here last weekend and i was fortunate enough to meet a couple of the guys before they went off to meet their um conflict buddies and um yeah i just hope everyone's doing alright and that like i said earlier one day a year to remember your mates is is good but you got to leave the rest of it that's it gotta leave the rest of it behind you have and i can i just say if any of the lads end up watching this um for two commander quickly bags serving lads what an absolute pleasure an awesome machine they they are i wish and you probably do we're through in the romanians now because they do a fantastic job they volunteered for the weekend to invite us all vets down they looked after us they showed us the the new machinery that they've got which they turn on every single one um and seven out of ten of them apparently are they've got degrees now so they're not only ocean machines um with amazing uh physiques but they're intelligent as well and they and they um the commanding officer of 42 commando gave us a 15 minute speech there was four three hundred and eighty of us that arrived back um and we were well looked after and he gave us a little 15 minute speech about what the romanians do and we're obviously not going to say but they're all over the world 42 commando not just in in berkeley bergs they are all all over the world and obviously and they're busy and the things they're getting up to and you think wow i wish i was back in so i want to congratulate um um 42 commando serving lads for looking after the absolute pleasure told you all and the commanding officer of um 42 commando thank you for for all your difference and colonel vogue's who i actually met uh he was there um i walked up to him uh because he did a little speech before we went on the drill yard to do the uh march past um i walked up to him as i walked up to him he's he's i don't know he just remembered me and then i went hello sir can i shake hand and thank you for looking after me i was i was only and i was about to say i was only seven he went yes you were only 17 year old and your mother she is very assertive and um i was like wow and he went you remembered you remembered me which is amazing and i've been told that you remember all every one of his lads i don't think he has to travel that far because if i remember rightly my my dad used to sell him his sell and fit his carpets yeah and uh my dad lives out that way yeah um he honestly is brilliant and um the most amazing thing to end with is the 40-year reunion we all lined up on on the drill yard i'm sorry on the they've got an astrotriff thinking i've got an astrotriff um so the pitch and we're on there and um julian thompson came and kill of orcs both of them stood on the on the pedestal even the call it up on the up on there and there understand uh and war marines 40th manner war marines attention um by turn to your duties and then gave the exactly same order that he gave 40 years ago to the south atlantic to your duties quick march and it took me back and i think that some of the lads said they just for split seconds felt like they were in that spot at the same time again so we marched around giving the the uh ed red ed right eyes right and then and then mark around the march around the on the camp stopped outside the memorial area uh went in did a lovely memorial and then went did what we all do good good at and got drunk afterwards and cucked each other and and and listened to the um the sergeant's mess beating of the drum by the role marines band who they did that for us and that was fantastic as well so it all ended up fantastic and well worth going because it was the first one i've been to in 40 years is my first one we deserve it mate you know it's uh it's it's um always good to catch up with old oppos yeah we have a reunion every every year and uh it's um i said mine mine's just just be the first one 40 years that we all meet up two seven six two meet up i can't wait to meet all the lads um and we're gonna meet them in xmas we're meeting in xmas um for weekend so i'm looking forward to in september good good does it get down the puffing billy isn't it i think that's still there it's all changed now isn't it but yeah it's on the pub somewhere i know that we will davie come back and chat to us again at some some point hopefully yeah okay my thanks cheers royal must appreciate it oh it's absolutely my pleasure i hope to see you soon yeah take care and to everybody at home massive massive thank you for tuning into another edition of the bought the t-shirt podcast if you can like and subscribe uh that will be much appreciated um i hope you enjoyed this chat uh as much as i did and uh look after yourselves we'll see you next time