When we were posted we had to fly out to Germany and the night before we had to stay in this god forsaken put you up known as the Union Jack Club ( not the nice new one, built later. In the morning we were up early and very excited about going on a flight for the first time. But it was a disaster, I forgot sooty, I left him at the Union Jack club and spent the entire journey either howling for the lost sooty or telling my sister that if she undid her seat belt she would fall out of the plane, causing her to scream.
So we moved to Lubbecke in Germany, these were great days to be with the forces in BAOR, the LOA was good, there was little chance of getting sent to a conflict zone for the soldiers. It was only 22yrs since the end of WW2, Germany was bright and vibrant and the soldiers and their famillies were partying in the land of cheap booze and cigs. It was a lovely place from what I remember of it, gorgeous outdoor swimming pool just along the road where we spent a lot of our days in the summer.
Dad bought a car a volkswagen beetle no prizes for guessing what we called it. I started school here B.F.E.S. Lubbecke, santa used to arrive at the school by helicopter, one year santa was my dad and I informed everyone who would listen very loudly about this.
Lubbecke was a land of beer festivals where the fountain in the town would flow with the brew from Barre Brau and they would fill anything with a handle on it,I remember that the REME welded a handle to a metal bath, enterprising chaps. The brewery horses were magnificent beasts, all done up to the 9's pulling the Beir Konig through the town. There was also a huge funfair which arrived not far away, during the Schutzenfest season with the largest big wheel I had ever seen. We loved it there, we learned to love pommes mit mayo, bratwurst, frikadellen, Kotelets and schnitzels etc from the Schell imbiss, i wish someone would start up Schnellies as we called them, over here. Paprika crisps were also a strong favourite in our house.

At the weekends my parents would have parties and the house would be full of people all having fun, this included some people who were very folksy as I remember like Matt McGinn and Archie McCulloch, playing guitars and singing songs like there was an old woman who lived in the woods. Sundays were known as Tatties disco days - Tatty was a young soldier who used to babysit for us, he loved the tunes from the disney albums - particularly Jungle book and would have all the kids from round about in our house dancing to I'm the king of the swingers yeah the Jungle VIP' (tatty later became one of the red freds - thats the red devils parachute display team to those who dont know). There was Mickey Murphy who entertained us for hours with his magic teeth - Mickey was the only person we knew who could take his teeth out! There were sports days and rugby matches a plenty. Dad once injured his leg badly at a rugger match tearing the ligaments and spent ages in BMH Rinteln making Gonks and teddy bears for us while he was laid up. more tomorrow