Sergeant Alan Caulkett

We then got sent to Bahrain and I was in Bahrain as Intelligence Sergeant. We were right down the south end of the island. Again, that was just an office job, maps, patrol reports, posters. Again restricted for training as the Sheikh would not allow a lot of movement so we did a few little exercises along the south side of the island, bit of helicopter work as well, but again mainly barrack work. Well in fact it was so boring that the CO, who was Millman, organised a scheme for each platoon to do, one was building a church wall, one was making a mini golf course, one was making an exercise area, one was a zoo. We took over from the Paras and we had two monkeys, Iggy and Oggy, and they got their wings by being thrown off a huge great water tower with a home-made parachute on. But they survived, these two monkeys. There were various lizards as well. Not a lot to do, it was boring. We used to walk around the perimeter fence for exercise. It was like being in prison. A bit of fishing and things like that. We had a dhow [single masted coasting vessel] we used to go out on fishing trips on. A year of not a lot to do, very hot, used to do a lot of swimming as we had our own pool, tennis courts, things like that. Again, my work was just office work. Then they suddenly decided in their wisdom to send me back to do a Brecon course which had just started then.