Bren at War

[Peter Laidler]

I went on a PT instructors course at Nee Soon/Tanglin camp in Singapore as a bit of what I thought would be a jolly. It was mornings only but xxxxxxx hard physical work! One of the instructors there was a Gurkha who'd got the VC in Borneo. We just knew him as Cpl. Bimbo.

The photo illustrates what I say about sights............ 800 yards was 750 yards to far! If it wasn't actual visibility, it was just constantly dark green. We had to take salt and pallaudrin tablets every day which so said, made you sweat twice as much as you would normally. Without those jungle/beanie hats the salty sweat used to run into your eyes and sting like buggery*
* 'sting like buggery' - a highly technical tropical medicine term used as a flowery descriptive term among the well read medicos amongst us!