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Mémoire – Keith TILLY

 

(AAS Arborfield 51B)

 

 

Introduction

Well, you have to start somewhere, don’t you? I was thinking back to my early days and realised that it is the small things that impress; when I was in Malaya, for instance. On a quiet summer’s morning, with the sun gently rising, we drove eastward to work. Through the haze you could just make out the shape of the local coolies bouncing along the road with a yoke on their shoulders carrying their water back to the kampong. Very romantic; in fact, if you caught the yoke gently with the edge of your Land Rover, the natives would spin round like helicopter rotor blades. In the mirror you could see lines of them trying to recover their balance; most of them made it but a few drifted left and fell into a monsoon ditch.  No wonder we lost the Empire.

 

Never mind all that, this mémoire is about the unsung heroes of war -

not the SAS. ”We kill, not cuddle!”

not the Infantry.”Ah dorn’t give a fook. Kill the lot of ‘em!”

not the medics. ”I can’t feel his pulse. Bury the bastard; he ain’ worth taking back!”

No, this is all about the highly trained professional engineers of REME. Thank God I was with them well behind enemy lines; I would hate to have to rely on anything I had repaired.