Well just look at us now, clean clothes, shiny boots, and me mate with a pugree and clean shovel. (For you Yanks, 'pugree' comes from an old Indian name for a hat-scarf. In other words, it is the band we wore around our slouch hats.) What a mob of classy toffs we were, no doubt !

The tents give the game away, we are out on reserve of course and living in 5 star quarters for the time being. As I sit here 50 years later and look at this snap, it amuses me no end to recall that we were in the lap of luxury at this point in time. An infamous Australian Prime Minister once said. "Life wasn't meant to be easy". He of course came from a long line of silver-tailed ancestors.

Luxury is relative I guess ! When one is up to the knees in mud and water, and the roof of your bunker leaks like a sieve, living in a tent for a while is sheer bliss.

Nasty thought I know but it is a mystery unsolved to this day. One of our battalion commanding officers had acquired a caravan no less, of course this was off the luxury scale altogether. Woe was he when the Chinese attacked, and BHQ was in the midst of all the drama. What should happen but the caravan went up in flames, all of his little pleasures went away with the smoke. Twas often said, the Chinese got nowhere near his caravan, who but the culprit will ever know the truth ?

Ron