Page 24 - Mercian Eagle 2013

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1 MERCIAN QM Dept and Coy Reps host the visit of Gethin Jones of Blue Peter fame
Items found surplus on stocktake!! CSgt ‘Bugsy’ Malone came across
this small quantity of equipment whilst browsing through unallocated ISO containers – it generated some extra paperwork for the QM Maj Kim Taylor
the afternoon was set aside for personal fitness with, a Friday morning collective run to shake out the cobwebs. Donny and Pte ‘Grimmy’ Grimshaw began Op Massive; Grimmy pumped the iron and Donny just pumped the protein shakes! The mail came in thick and fast and the lads spent long hours sorting and ensuring it got to the boys and we even got a special mention
on Facebook for our efforts but it wasn’t flattering unfortunately. Ptes ‘Smudger’ Smith and ‘Tiny’ Littler
were our posties
extraordinaire until
Smudger too fell foul of
the ‘Dickie’ Page Half
Tour Syndrome’ and
was despatched home.
He was replaced by
Pte ‘Dan’ Wright who
then took Donny’s place
as Grimmy’s training
buddy. These two spent many long nights ‘working out’ together; apparently a B Coy trait! As Christmas rolled in, we also saw the departure of Cpl Bishnu and Pte Rait
as A Company departed theatre. Once Pte Rait had boarded the aircraft the nurses within Role 3 hospital lifted their self- imposed curfew as they deemed it now safe to venture back out.
1 MERCIAN Rear Joint Operations Cell (JOC) in MOB BASTION Feb 13
Back in the J4 Cell, CSgt ‘Bugsy’, ’Cat Fingers’, Malone began arranging a table tennis competition as he had ‘put all his fires out’. He was going to run a quiz too but
he spent so much time trying to organise the CLP that his quad bike ran out of fuel and he never got back in time. Sgt Dave Gill picked up the reigns for the quiz but we are still waiting for Question one! A primary school in Markington, Harrogate sent a little laminated character called Flat Stanley
very busy period initially. Led by CSgt John Whitmore, his team of Cpl ‘Death’ Shanley and Cpl Mo Morris AKA ‘Princess’, did a sterling job matched only by the realisation that Death is known to his mother as... Royston. John also arranged Sunday morning football and volleyball in a bid for Bugsy to relive his youth. A new arrival into the department who came on tour with us and subsequently stayed is Cpl Paul Varley. He entertained the masses with his hilarious anecdotes of his gap years from the army which were interrupted once a week by some amazing one-liners from Cpl Jaya Bahadur Pun (once he had woken from his slumber).
By January, Sgt Bob Lambert had destroyed more ammunition than the whole of the TSU had fired and Donny had given up on Op Massive. Sadly though, no one had told him to stop drinking the protein shakes so he started to resemble the Michelin man. In sympathy, Paul and Tiny agreed to go on Op Massive with him but they too couldn’t even manage one rep of pulling themselves out of bed! The New Year saw the departure of B Coy 1 RGR which meant Tufty and Sgt ‘Westy’ Westmoreland could fully exploit their shares in Paradigm once again; clocking up more surf time than the Rear JOC
The mail came in thick and fast and the lads spent long hours sorting and ensuring it got to the boys...
who fast became one of the team. Sadly he was kidnapped after attending the midnight run and the prime suspects came in the form of Grimmy, Pte ‘Tomo’ Thomas, Pte ‘Tufty’ Tuft and Cpl ‘Wicksy’ Wicksham. After CSI stormed their to close in. The writing
tent the net started
was certainly on the wall as we found
out whilst having a ‘quiet moment’ and looked up to see someone had written on the toilet wall “not even Chuck Norris can find Flat Stan”. Eventually Flat Stan was returned and Tufty and Tomo were saved from a berating! Some of the CIS Pl were attached to the department and they had a
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