1947 -ON ACTIVE SERVICE ABROAD- 1948
Battle soldiers meet in far-away places

     The war in Europe was over, but many of us younger ones had to soldier on, there was  still a dangerous job to do in the Middle East. After acclimatizing in Egypt, we were assigned   to keeping the peace in Palestine.  As it turned out, I wasn't the only soldier from Battle in the Holy Lands. I was very lucky, and extremely surprised, to meet several lads from my home town. We all shared the same teachers at "The Battle and Langton School" in Marley Lane.
 I shall never forget that Michael seriously injured my leg with a spade in 1939 when we were digging Air-Raid shelters for the school in an adjacent field. I still have the scar.

                  Palestine     

Cyprus

      
    

   I met Michael Poole (left) at Mount    Scopus Camp in Jerusalem. He was  just   visiting the Holy City with his company of Grenadier Guards.
How  he knew that I was with the Irish Guards on Mount Scopus  I cannot remember.
I was operating the I.G. Middle-East Military Exchange switchboard in a  old Nissen Hut, and suddenly, there he was, in the doorway, and I couldn't believe my eyes.  
I do not know what has happened to Michael after he returned to Blighty,
           

  I met Godfrey Lade (left) in a British Military Leave Camp named "Golden Sands", in Famagusta, Cyprus.
   (A tented camp, long before today's Holiday Hotels    were built) We had both chosen to take leave from    various parts of the Middle-East at the same time.  I    didn't even know that he was in Palestine.  Godfrey was  serving with the 4/7th. Dragoon Guards, and, on release found employment with Till's the  well-known Ironmongers in the middle of Battle
    High Street, where he worked for many years.
Godfrey has become an expert on Ted Heath and his Music, and still lives in Battle