Today Carole and I travelled down to Northamptonshire to catch up with one of my oldest Army friends, Alan ‘Jimmy’ McGhee. Jim was the first face I saw on my arrival in September 1981 at CSG in Leicestershire for my trade training; we roomed together until he left for Cyprus in the Spring of 1982. We met up again in December 1982 when I arrived in Cyprus where I was delighted to find we were on the same shift, D Troop together, until he left for 14 Sigs in West Germany in the Spring of 1985. Carole and I left Cyprus in the December of 1985 and headed for Berlin. Jimmy and his new wife, Michelle, then arrived in Berlin in the Spring of 1987 and it was our turn to welcome them to a new Regt and location. Michelle was a fabulous friend to Carole when our daughter, Helen, died in September of 1987 and Jimmy, a rock, was there for me also. We went our separate ways again in 1989, Jimmy and Michelle to Cornwall and Carole and I to Leicestershire, before meeting up again on the same 4 month long Supervisors course in 1993 to be promoted to SSgt, and then being posted together again in Cyprus in 1995. Again, we went separate ways in the Spring of 1998 before meeting up later that same year in Lincolnshire when we arrived at JSSU Digby (Jimmy & Michelle had taken over our married quareter at Scampton for us). Jimmy left the Army in September of 2002 and moved to Milton Keynes joining Coca Cola; I left in 2005 joining a small consultancy firm in Warwickshire but working in Bath. We met up when Carole invited them to my 50th birthday event in 2010. Life, family, jobs, travel and Covid got in the way of any further meet ups until Jimmy and I sadly attended the funeral, in July of last year, of a mutual friend who was on our Supervisors course and we promised to get together soon. That’s been planned a few times, but house moves (theirs), illness (all of us), operations (me) got in the way until today.
Needless to say, like all ex-military, we picked up where we’d left off as if we’d parted only yesterday. (We’ve promised not to leave it so long until we next meet - so I reckon July 2036 is a date)
And the same colour shirts was purely a coincidence
You must have been in Cyprus at the same time as us. We were there from 1983 - 1986.
Wonderful seeing men wearing pink