Anybody for Volleyball??????

Taken just as the legions of Sparta met the Gauls at Volleyball. The winners played the Romans. 
41 (Pron. four one) Commando. Volleyball was played wherever we could string a net up. In this case Luqa Airport, Malta, February 1972. There were no rules as we played to “Jungle Rules” ie there are no rules. We beat the fire crews, they had to wear their fire fighting boots and trousers.

Dom Mintoff, then Prime Minister of Malta had decided in his wisdom to remove all British Forces from the island and align his government with Libya. OK, his island, his rules, but we were slightly annoyed as we had only arrived two months earlier for a two year Mediterranean sojourn. Our wives were sent home immediately; we were put on 24 hours on, 24 stand-by and 24 off. Cheers Dom. Fortunately as we were given the airfield to protect we were being fed during our 24 hours on by Crab Air. They had table cloths, fine cuisine and lady crab types! Cor. 

Our routine was simple, spend two hours behind the two GPMGs on the roof of the control tower, two hours annoying people trying to enter the control tower followed by four hours of Janet and John research for our thesis. During the hours off we would eat, clean weapons, drip (complain) until the cry to arms - “Volleyball!!!!!!!!” This would see a lurch of half naked lads to the door, first come, first play. 

When I hear modern chaps witter about being “ripped”, spending days in a gym etc I chuckle. That’s me on the right. Hard work, a 6 mile run each morning, PT until you dropped, then get rat-arsed on Cisk each evening when off duty. 

We were at lunch one day, savouring the iced water the RAF supplied to their people, when in walked a bunch of Rock Apes (as in Barbary apes common on the Rock of Gibraltar, which was also owned by the Royal Marines). This was the friendly appellation we gave the RAF Regt, their own airfield protection force. “Where did you lot come from?” We enquired. “We live in the barracks in the middle of the airfield,” they cheerily replied. “So we are protecting the RAF’s own protection force.” That did not go down well with us or our boss, we had no idea they were there. Our only enemy was supposed to be Gaddafi’s mob of camel jockeys; all that time our other enemy was inside the perimeter. Doh!

PS The big bloke to my left with the tat, his son was in the same class as our daughter when she joined the Navy. Small world.