On And Off The Rails (Part 1)
September 3, 2009
January 1972……Rhodesia Railways Mechanical Workshops, Bulawayo.
There were four of us that year. Apprentice Plater-Welders, a grand title indeed. I was just 17.
We were youngsters straight out of school with apparently not enough academic intelligence to go and get a Degree….lepers compared to the likes of the goody-goody, lardie-dardie-old-school-tie-up-your kilt brigade. You know the ones I mean.
We had ended up in the Welding Shop, a place of alien odours, bright blinding flashing crackling arcs, hissing and spluttering gas flames, flying sparks, clanging metal, phantom wankers, and swearing Journeymen.
The other three were there because they wanted to be….me for the simple fact that my pass rates at school were so bad that I was considered only good enough to melt two pieces of metal together after cutting, bending, and banging them into strange shapes. Being absolutely atrocious at mathematics of any kind, anything slightly numerical would ensure a panic attack of immense proportions, guaranteeing I would never hold a brain surgeons qualification.
I remember Titch Tyzack well. A small man as his name implies, he was the Welding Shop foreman and a true gentlemen who treated all of us with great respect and I don’t think I ever saw him lose his temper once. He issued us with all our new and shiny kit…..oxygen and acetylene gauges with black and red pipes to go with them, chipping hammers, wire brushes, long welding gloves, welding helmets and goggles, and a full length leather apron that was supposed to protect us from going sterile with radiation but actually made one look like Jack the Ripper out on one of his evenings walks around Whitechapel…..aaaah yes and some spats to cover our new and shiny brown safety boots, presumably to stop our victims blood splashing on them during the gut-slashing process.
He also gave me 6 little pieces of triangular aluminium……on it was stamped a number….728775……my employee number…..and they were held together by a special spring clip. I felt very important indeed as these were the currency of the technical stores….with them I would be able to draw all the tools I needed…..as long as I exchanged each tool for one of my precious little discs.
We guarded our discs well…counting them carefully each day, auditing them against the amount of tools in our wooden lockers….much evil could be done with them in the wrong hands.
The time had now come for us to meet our Journeymen, the person who would be our mentor for the next year at least. For those of you who don’t know, many of the Journeymen working in Rhodesia at that time were from foreign and often strange lands. Some of them smelt of garlic. Others had greasy faces. I was destined to be put in the capable hands of a man named Jack Crilly, a tough as nails, broken-nosed Welder from Stockton-on-Tees, who had served his time at the Imperial Chemical Industry (ICI) facility. Jack did not smell of garlic…he was also not greasy….this was very useful as he needed to get up close when he spoke to me about something I had fucked up…..not because I was deaf or anything like that…..it was just so freaking noisy in the workshops that at times it was easier to speak in signs.
During my time as an apprentice I would also be nurtured by a probable ex-IRA gunman who also taught me to play bridge at tea times, a South African who liked to make out he was an underwear fashion photographer, and a Rhodesian who always seemed to be on another planet.
So the scene was set for a great five years….or so I thought.
Rhodesia Railways 20th Class Garrett: One Mean Mother Locomotive
Why am I doing this?
September 2, 2009
Its pretty simple really.
I have been considering writing an account about my 25 years in uniform for some time now but came to realise there is just too much out there and lost the urge. Then one morning in the shower I had one of my rare bright moments and decided perhaps a Blog is the way to go.
And so here we are.
There are so many books and memoirs out there by war heroes and unbelievably real-life Rambos that everything else that anyone else has done in the military seems irrelevant. Everything seems to be Special Forces this or Black Ops that. Quite amusing at times although I am not saying that there is not a place for Special Forces in a military organisation…..what I am saying is that people now see it as a way to make money and it does get pretty monotonous.
I would like to show you by way of this Blog that there is indeed life, loyalty, extreme endurance, total professionalism, heroism, and people doing a damn fine job in the military besides Special Forces troops. I too served in the Special Forces for a time but it didn’t make me feel I was any better than any other soldier who put either his or her life on the line, or carried out the equally important administrative and logistic duties. We all bleed the same colour blood…it is red believe me..and we all feel the same piss filled fear when facing certain death close up and personal. Anyone with the naivety to disagree with me was either never in close combat with an enemy intent on killing them, or was clearly quite mad at the time.
I was not a hero although I proudly wear nine medals on the left hand side of my chest on veterans parades, including one from the Russian Federation, possibly the only one ever awarded to any former Rhodesian or South African soldier at the time.
This then is a cautious but nevertheless sincere attempt to share with all that care to join me here, the story as I recall it (without the benefit of a diary) of my early years, military career, and beyond. There will be no accurate dates because I never wrote them down. There will be little fame, quite a lot of pain, and yes indeed a good dose of shame. There will be sadness and happiness, humour, shock and awe, and sometimes disbelief at some of the things I write on these pages.
I will not however publish the full names of all the many characters that will surface during the lifetime of this Blog…but I will do of some….the unnamed dodgy ones who crossed my path will know who I am referring to, and the good ones will too! I also do not acknowledge the source of many of the photos and maps on the blog as some contributors choose to remain anonymous by choice. Additionally many photos are from 3rd parties and the origins are genuinely unknown. This has already raised the eyebrows of certain paragons of virtue who slammed me for being unprofessional. I accept the criticism with grace and urge those offended by the use of one of their photos or maps to contact me through the comments section and I will rectify the situation.
So join me if you will as I take you from the booze blurred days of my youth, to the steaming hell of the malaria infested Zambezi Valley, from the glorious sight of the thundering Victoria Falls, to the stinking, carcass riddled minefields of Cordon Sanitaire, from the smoothly running rivers of Angola, and the unforgiving heat of the Kalahari…..to the killing fields of Kosovo and Bosnia, and the oil rich seas of Far Eastern Russia….ending in the sinister mystique of the volatile Middle East.
Finally if this is my story then it must also be my own confession……… and an account of a young mans loss of innocence to war.
Nyahuku (Cordon Sanitaire)-Rhodesia 1970’s: a much thinner Fatfox9 standing left
Mark Craig
Fatfox9's Blog 