The protestors, in our case, did it by forcing us to stand ready continuously for days, with just the threat of outbreaks. Eventually, the Army High Command decided to force their hand by fudging the legality issue and making the unrest occur when we wanted it to. Without going into too much detail, on one occasion a Marine sergeant rolled a canister of C.S. gas down the aisle, during a service at the Reverend Paisley’s Ravenhill church.

The soldiers of the British Parachute Brigade have epitomised Kipling’s Tommy over the years. Lionised In times of national danger, and despised in others. The media, which do not always get it right, spawn much of the adulation/vilification. On one occasion, their error provided a needed moral lift for our unit.

The Reverend Ian Paisley had organised a day of celebration when thousands of his followers would march through the streets of Belfast. It was their open intention to parade through the Catholic neighbourhoods with the obvious risk of conflagration. Early that morning we were already manning roadblocks and searching cars of those heading for the rallying points, for offensive weapons, such as steel piping, baseball bats, wrenches etc.

As the day wore on, tension naturally rose and there were small outbreaks of containable violence throughout the city. At one point, we were deployed in the Montpelier area of Belfast. Along with twelve other paras I was locked in a confrontation with sixty, seventy women, some with children in their arms, while the others threw ice cream tubs filled with human excrement at us – successfully. The frustration of having five rounds per man, fixed bayonets, members of an elite fighting force, and male, I have to confess, was palpable. We were emasculated by our orders not to retaliate, and it was overwhelming. Worse, for our battered pride, was to come, when we were ‘rescued’ by the chance arrival of four members of the RUC who had none of our compunction in ‘explaining’ to the women that they should disperse.

Tails between our legs we left and were re-assigned to ‘protect’ the Catholic canton of Madrid Street, as it appeared the parade was to reach its first point of possible conflict. We arrived and hurriedly formed a line across the road as the head of the parade came into sight. Once again we fixed bayonets and put on our ‘They shall not pass’ faces, knowing full well we were on a hiding to nothing, if not worse. Tails between our legs we left and were re-assigned to ‘protect’ the Catholic canton of Madrid Street, as it appeared the parade was there to reach its first point of possible conflict.

We arrived and hurriedly formed a line across the road as the head of the parade came into sight. Once again we fixed bayonets and put on our ‘They shall not pass’ faces, knowing full well we were on a hiding to nothing, if not worse. The crowd, I can’t honestly say mob because, although they were threatening and shouted abuse, they were orderly. Above us, a helicopter clattered to and fro. We learned later that it contained press personnel from the News of the World.

At the last moment, when they were virtually upon us, the head of the column veered right and took the body of the marchers through a protestant enclave running parallel to Madrid. Violence had been averted.

Subsequently, the newspaper had a fantastic headline, and aerial photograph, on an article for the British public that lauded our actions, trumpeting “Thin Red Line Backs Down Mob”.

We, on the other hand, thanked our lucky stars for the professionalism of the parade stewards Paisley had assigned that day, their ability to strictly control their marchers and especially their orders that mid-afternoon was far too early for the confrontational violence to start.

My unit at the time was an integral part of the Parachute Logistic Regiment and an element of 16 Parachute Brigade. However, we were not always deployed in support of our parent brigade and in this instance were sent to Belfast to support the regular units there. The majority of the units representing the Airborne Brigade were sent to Londonderry.

Our unit was to occupy four dilapidated, empty cottages at Long Kesh, later to become the site of the ‘H’ Blocks of Long Kesh notoriety, but which was at that time a disused, grass-overgrown civil airfield. Within a short period, we had fixed the holes in the roof, cleaned up the rooms and applied some paint to make the houses into reasonable accommodation.

Our raison d’être was to re-supply the local units with the full range of items necessary to function efficiently, in addition to which we operated a mobile bath unit. We were also on call as reserve foot soldiers to take part in riot control, night patrols etc. During our time there, the on call requirement dominated our commitment. We had the responsibility for security, mainly crowd or riot control, when needed, in the Madrid Street/Prince Albert Bridge area of Belfast.

Initially, when we did night patrols, we would be greeted, in the Catholic area, at say, 3am, by an old lady with tea and potato scones or at 4am by a pensioner offering each of us a cigarette. However, the IRA frowned on this generosity and it soon disappeared. We were to be kept busy during the early days by disturbances, initiated by the UVF/UDA militants, housed in an HQ, whose whole front was a depiction in red, white and blue of the Union flag, opposite the end of Madrid Street.

On one occasion, as the crowd gathered in front of their HQ, we noticed a young guy, festooned with cameras and wearing a blue crash helmet. As Paras, we wanted everyone to know exactly who was there to prevent undue violence, and refused to wear helmets, preferring our red berets. The crowd, as it increased in size, became more vociferous and threatening.

During the build-up, we heard from the cameraman that he worked for Le Monde in France, that he had recently covered the student riots in Paris, where he had found the helmet to be essential, providing all the security and safety he needed. Within minutes, the brouhaha flared up and we parted company.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, several of us actually laughed aloud, struggling as we were, to prevent the crowd rampaging down Madrid Street to commit mayhem, when we saw the young Frenchman being stretchered out by our Medics. Apparently, some rioter, blissfully unaware of the photographer’s philosophy regarding the blue helmet, had cheerfully kneed him in the groin.
(to be continued)

I joined a boxing club to develop a way of avoiding daily beatings. A spin-off benefit of this was winning the Midlands of Scotland Lightweight championship.I left Caledonia at the age of fifteen, narrowly evading Borstal, to join the British Army where I spent two and a half years in Boys Service. I was then posted to adult service and put on stand-by for the Suez Emergency.

Fortunately, that ended rather ignominiously, as everyone knows, and I shipped out to Malaya, at the height of the communist insurgency there. On the completion of three years, the next port of call was Belgium, then the UK, where, after selection and training, I served with the airborne forces and passed some time in the North, Belfast mainly, during The Troubles. Eventually I went to Germany, where, by the skin of my teeth, I avoided being court-martialled for punching out a fellow warrant officer who had rather over estimated his own physical capabilities.

Hong Kong followed the Fatherland, where I moonlighted as an extra and stuntman for Shaw Bros and Golden Harvest Film studios. I appeared, albeit briefly, in Bruce Lee and I, episode nine of Hawaii Five O, and a myriad of other features produced purely for consumption by the Chinese cinema goer.Returning to Europe, I was recruited by a head-hunter on behalf of the U.S. Government and after several courses in CONUS served in most of the European countries and Israel & Turkey.

I managed at this time to obtain two degrees from the University of Maryland and travel extensively on mainland Europe as a tour manager for a holiday firm concentrating on American clientele.

With the downsizing of the U.S. presence, in the European theatre, a friend offered me the job of convoy manager, ferrying humanitarian aid to the beleaguered cities and towns of Bosnia-Herzegovina, under the auspices of UNHCR, during the conflict in the early nineties in the former Yugoslavia.

Eventually I retired to the UK and took up golf, wrote The Tuzla Run and have offered my body, piecemeal, to medical science, which is currently in possession of three per cent of it, while I retain the rights to the balance — so far. Since then, life has become so boringly uncomplicated and decidedly humdrum, that I’ve decided to write a sequel to The Tuzla Run with a working title of The Poisoned Chalice. Spider and Rath will appear on stage once more but the villain supplanting Colonel Paroski will be Liam McDermot, the older, nastier brother of Calum McDermot, deceased.

Duplicitous in the extreme Roy Cheatham, the head of the convoy organisation plays his own dangerous game. Prepared to jeopardise the lives of his drivers, while attempting a high-risk double cross against his erstwhile partners, his allegiance is for sale to the highest bidder.

Colonel Paroski, head of Croatian Military Intelligence, is tasked with the destruction of the convoy en route through Bosnia and is the nemesis of all those committed to its survival and, in particular, of Dennis Crowther. The devils, which haunt Crowther, drive the paedophile into the hands of those ruthless enough to use his weaknesses for their own ends. Life is cheap on the Run and Crowther’s is considered cheaper than most.

Calum McDermot, young and naive, has betrayed others in the movement and seeks to escape the long arm of the IRA which he knows is already reaching out to reclaim its own and avenge betrayal.

The action explodes against the ravaged Balkan terrain where conflict is inflamed by the internecine hatred of centuries. The inhospitable landscape provides its own challenges to men who, facing attack from artillery and snipers, must also confront the private fears that caused them to join the Tuzla Run. The treacherous mountain tracks and raging river torrents combine in a roller coaster ride which tests even the most experienced drivers amongst those both brave and foolhardy enough to join the UN relief convoys.

He had a Corgi which was the nastiest, most bad-tempered, bloodyminded,fattest, porcine, little canine I have ever known. I hated that dog with an unnatural passion. By and large, Corgis are not blessed with good nature but lacking exercise, and overly spoiled by their owners, they can be positively vicious. This rogue, pampered unmercifully, could hardly walk due to lack of activity. It was drowning in a bottomless pit of misguided love.

The mutt had a highly developed sense of meanness. It also seemed to believe, with apparent good reason, that there was no misdemeanour for which Andrew would chastise it. This coincided with my own opinion. The dog was on to good thing because his master would invariably speak out in support of its attacks on unwary visitors or at least justify its efforts at unprovoked assaults as “just doing his job, the wee darling!” As far as the owner was concerned the dog could do no wrong.

As Chief Clerk, I would have to go into Andrew’s office several times a day to deliver and collect documents and correspondence. The dog would snap and bite at my ankles, even when Andrew was present, but as I always wore heavy boots and anklets it did not draw blood. When the dog actually bit the Padre I was determined that it would get its comeuppance.

The members of Church of Scotland did not have a military chaplain but were administered to by the Reverend McPherson, a mild, sweet old gentlemen in his seventies. He was not infirm but I can remember how translucent the skin on his hands was and I wondered at the time if I would ever live to be that old.

One day he came to visit the Adjutant. He knocked, then opened the door – but Andrew was not there. The Corgi was.

It leapt up and badly gnashed his hand and wrist. We had a fretful few minutes trying to stem the flow of blood without stitches.

Earlier that day, while Andrew was still on the premises, Corporal Leitch had returned from a course in the north of Scotland bringing back, at Andrew’s request, three white puddings. The Adjutant waxed lyrical about the culinary excellence of the “wee, white, timorous puddings” that he would have for supper that evening. However, until he had time to take them to the Officer’s Mess later, the puddings would remain on a side table in his office.

As soon as the Padre had left to get medical attention I went into Andrew’s office to set the scene. I thought that his passion for white puddings just might override the dogmatic assertions that the Corgi could do no wrong. It was worth a shot.

After shaking the dog free from my trouser leg I placed a chair conveniently against the side table, took out the three puddings, ripped the bag, and savaged each of the puddings beyond redemption. I threw a couple of scraps to the Corgi who gulped them down and looked for more. It took only a few seconds for the beast to realise that from the chair it could reach the table and the puddings. I closed the door of the office and went back to my own.

What happened after Andrew’s return was not too clear, since his shouting had a hysterical quality about it, but the Corgi never appeared in the building again.

We first met as teenagers, in the Army, but did not immediately take to each other. Both on the boxing team, both light-welterweights, with a similar number of wins and virtually the same level of ability, it was a cause of disagreement that I officially represented the first string and Pat, as those around him knew him, was the second string. With each programme produced, showing our team positions, there would be bad feeling between us. Looking back now, I feel I can understand Pat’s point of view because he had the edge, as a more physical presence in the ring, being a fighter, with several KO’s and stoppages to his credit, whereas mine were point decisions.

Our barracks were located two or three miles from the village of Frimley Green which was our Mecca for meeting girls. The road seemed inordinately long to us young Lotharios but, if one walked along the towpath of the Basingstoke Canal, it did seem much shorter. The waterway had been in disuse for many years, was thick with weed and detritus, and was only about two feet deep in most places.

One bright Sunday afternoon I was on my way to the village, idly dead heading dandelions with a stick as I walked, when I saw a couple coming towards me, accompanied by a large black dog. It was Pat, with Pamela, an ex-girlfriend of mine, and her Bouvier des Flandres, on a chain leash. Pamela was a very attractive young woman, as I recall, with longish dark hair and an eye for fashion, wearing on that occasion, a swagger coat of shocking pink. Her dog, whose name I can’t recollect, was at the top range of size and weight for his breed. He was an active, very playful, mountain of curls, made to look ridiculous, in my opinion, by Pamela’s penchant for tying a bright electric blue ribbon to his top knot.

Naturally, I pretended not to see them and attempted to walk past casually without acknowledgement but Pat stopped me.

“Pam’s been telling me about you and what you’re like,” he said, pulling the dog back on the leash to sit by his foot.
I stopped decapitating dandelions.
“And?”
“Don’t ‘and’ me,” Pat said, I assumed, in an effort to impress his recently acquired girlfriend,” Or I’ll teach you a lesson.”
“You teach me a lesson?” I knew exactly what would rile him and deliberately set out to bring it to the fore. “You’re with an ex of mine, and you don’t know why you are always second string?”

As Pat stepped forward threateningly I threw the stick to one side, into the canal, to free my hands and get into a position to retaliate when, one hundred and twenty pounds of black, heavily-muscled, cow herder launched itself into the canal to retrieve the stick, taking the self-shackled Scouse with him.

Unfortunately, for Pat, but definitely not for me, the dog’s chain was firmly wrapped around his wrist. And like Mary’s little lamb, wherever Pamela’s dog went, Scouse was sure to go. The sight of Pat, knee deep in dank, green blanket weed trying to restrain the boisterous Bouvier and maintain his balance, caused me to laugh out loud. As opposed to infuriating Pat, he too saw how ludicrous the situation was and erupted into laughter. Pamela just looked bemused.

Many times in the years that followed, when Pat and I would meet up at reunions or funerals, the canal incident would be mentioned. It differed,in one small detail only, when Pat was recounting the event.

In his version, it would be me, who went canine aqua skiing,not him.

The fight co-ordinator turns out to be the stunts manager from the previous film. He seems quite pleased to see me and shakes my hand as he introduces me to a young, athletic Chinese guy wearing a beige, three-piece suit. This is Danny Lee, who is playing the lead, Bruce Lee. He gives me a wide welcoming grin with white even teeth.

Yuen, the fight choreographer, gives my instructions since the director, who asked specially that I be there, ignores me.

I am to be drunken, lecherous and about to molest Ms Betty when a vengeful Bruce half- drowns me in her bath. This is to be my ‘motivation’. I set to fighting Bruce but come up against the new martial art technique, devised by Bruce himself, who proceeds to whup my ass, competently and thoroughly, as I put up a pitiful display of European style boxing, intentionally ineffectual. I am not to look confident but must obviously be in awe of ‘The Dragon’.

Despite my following orders, neither Danny nor the action manager are happy with my performance. I must be more vigorous. I am to be admittedly unimpressive but not, as I currently appear, totally useless. Two or three more go-arounds show no improvement.

It is decided, for the sake of realism and due to my apparent inability to provide a serious threat to Bruce’s wellbeing that I should go all out and actually try to hit Bruce, who, the choreographer and Danny both believe, is accomplished enough to deflect all ‘my feeble efforts’. I like to think that I can absorb constructive criticism but, freely admit, not always with good grace. I should say, at this juncture, these guys are taking all the fun out of this for me. I’m beginning to feel just a little vexed.

We get down to it again but I can’t work up the motivation to go all out and Danny makes it look like child’s play deflecting my straight arm punches with an over the top looping movement, known in the business apparently as “The Snake”, that sweeps all my efforts away.

The director interrupts as he wants to film the scene in the corridor where the drunk passes Bruce on his way to Betty’s room, followed by the part where intoxicated me gets baptised. One take is enough for the corridor but the bathroom scene takes four, which means that many duckings for yours truly.

While waiting for the cameras to be set up for the whupping, the fight co-ordinator decides to have one last attempt at getting an Oscar performance out of me. Danny appears almost bored as he listens in.

“Do no try do much set piece box fight. Rerax. Do you your own ting. Trow punches. You not worry. Danny can stop.” Danny sagely nodded his agreement.
We go for one last hustle before we have to film.

I block Danny’s left fist with my solar plexus, and realise that he is rubbish at pulling a punch, before I mercilessly punish first his right and then his left set of knuckles with my face. I throw another right, his left hand sweeps over it and swings it away, outwards to my right, as simultaneously I unleash a left hook, elbow well up, that evades the snake. Henry Cooper would have been proud of it. Unfortunately, Danny can’t stop it, well, he does, but with three thousand dollars’ worth of bridgework.

Danny leaves to see his dentist. The director and the co-ordinator get into a huddle and, with frequent rather unhappy looks in my direction, decide their action plan. To me it is obvious I am toast, but wait – due to the scenes already shot and in the can, Danny’s time out to see his orthodontist and the lack of time to find someone else, I’ve become ‘indispensable’.

I’m to come back and film another day. Result!

Check it out for yourself on:

I watch with interest as two of the crew fit him up in a stout leather harness and buckle it up with a rather mean looking hook hanging down his back. Another guy, who I learn is the special effects expert, tapes several pieces of ordinary cardboard to Goliath’s bare chest and shoulders, delves into his box and places a minute blob of a putty-like substance on each of piece of carton. But, he’s not finished. He inserts short pieces of wire with brilliant red plastic ends into each daub of putty. He looks over his handiwork, checks the switches on the control panel he has with him and gives a thumbs up sign to the director’s assistant and moves, with his gear, away from the house.

The two men, who fitted Goliath with the harness, attach the hook to a cable that has been pulled out through the front door of the house. Once completed all three enter the house. The director is some distance away speaking on his mobile phone. Nothing will happen until he is available.

After my little tour de force, the crew and assistants seem more friendly and for whatever reason the director’s helper comes to stand beside me. I am now evidently persona grata. I take the opportunity to ask about next part of the story.

Further down the hill, the line of policemen with rifles are getting to their feet and facing uphill to the house. The little guy, Goliath, has been fitted up with explosive charges and linked, by cable, to a system of pulleys in the house. On cue, he will rush out as the policemen advance, firing his weapon wildly. Heavy fire will be returned by the riflemen, the power of which, through means of the pulley, will spectacularly ‘blow’ the hero off his feet.

I think this will be worth watching and get well behind the camera crews, of which there are now two. The director is back on set and within minutes “Action” rings out.

Goliath trots through doorway brandishing his shotgun, rather girlishly I think. There are three or four ‘pfiffs’ and feathery wisps of smoke emanate from his shirt. He falls backward awkwardly to sit on his haunches and resembles a small oriental child sitting on a potty.

I’m almost deafened by the vehemence and rage in the bellowed “Cut”. The director screams at his assistant, who in turn screams at the star, who in turn looks blank. Three sheepish looking guys, the pulley operators I take it, come out of the house and stand abjectly in front of the director. He waits until the special effects man joins the three. The director takes a deep breath and then the lambasting begins.

I know it is not physically possible but the four being chastised seem to visibly shrink. They all hang their heads and do not look at the director who is choleric with fury. The victims are far from inscrutable but are very uncomfortable. The director’s phone rings; he dismisses them and walks off to answer it.

Out of sight of the director, far from being cowed, the guys are seething. There is hand waving and shouting amongst themselves. The three pulley men disappear into the house. The effects specialist, muttering to himself, replaces the explosive and detonators on to the patches on Goliath’s body and the cable is hooked up by a pulley guy looking like thunder.

The director returns and the action starts. And how!

Goliath rushes out, unsteadily as if he has been pushed and almost falls over, but his shirt suddenly explodes and erupts in several places before disintegrating, each shred bursting into flame as it flies away. There is smoke everywhere and he jerks about like a rat shaken by a terrier but the force of the detonations hold him upright before he is hurtled violently backward, as if in a wind tunnel or a Kansas tornedo, several feet above the ground, to crash with a nauseating thud into the door lintel. Incongruously, he hangs there, obviously unconscious, and immobile, except for an occasional twitch, in the doorway.

Totally ignoring him, the director calls for the pulley men and the special effects guy. The specialist is there first. The pulley men are called again and it is only when Goliath crashes in a limp heap in the doorway does everyone realise that they are on their way.

The camera crew set up at the open end of the house and as they are doing so I hope only one take is needed and that I’ll be conscious to receive any congratulations for a job successfully completed injury free.

The first warning shout for silence rings out and the assistant beckons me over to the ladder. I think how incongruous it is, that in the interests of safety, a man is holding the lower rungs of the ladder I’m about to climb, even though I’m going to come off much higher up— deliberately. With confidence I certainly don’t feel, I climb fairly quickly and get into position over the skylight. Beneath me, the little guy is waiting with his shotgun and I hope that he is a method actor. The way he is grimacing, it is as though he really does hate me.

The second call for silence goes out. For the first time I wonder why, as I know they don’t record sound during outdoor filming but add it later in the studio. I get into position to flop off the ladder, I hear “Action” — and launch.

I have no idea what the skylight is made of but it shatters and I’m through, almost immediately coming into contact with my first floor, rather forcibly as you can imagine. Fortunately, it gives and I hurtle through to the next one, which does hold, for a split second, before collapsing to allow me to drop onto the boxes. They work very well, but having been told in my briefing not to move before I hear “Cut”, I lie very still.

This causes an upset among some of the crew standing nearby and they panic, obviously thinking I’ve killed myself. They help me to my feet and then there are congratulations all round. Two of the crew remove the canvas, boxes and the rubber quickly to clear the concrete floor. A rather attractive young female member of the crew places an open plastic bottle, neck up, down my front, under my jacket. It is filled with a viscous red juice. I also take a huge mouthful of what is presumably the same “blood”. Following instructions, I lie on the floor with my head up and back arched. On the command “Action” I fall forward, spew out the liquid from my mouth, slam my chest onto the ground, depressing the bottle, which forcibly gouts the gore upwards and outwards to soak my neck and face and pool on the surrounding area of floor.

(When the film is eventually shown, I’m secretly delighted that I make such an impression with my acting when the audience cheers at this juncture. Later, a Chinese friend tells me, tactfully, that it is not my performance but because the police are definitely not the people’s favourite in Hong Kong. If it’s a ‘Gwai Lo’ policeman getting his comeuppance that is an additional bonus.)

However, I digress and have yet to describe the final scene.

(To be continued)

Today’s script concerns the true story of an impoverished crofter who feels persecuted when threatened with prison for not paying his rent or taxes, his wife and youngest child die and his one crop fails. He breaks down, loads his shotgun and goes into town where he opens fire on the police. The police pursue him back to this dwelling, where the real events took place.

The first scene I am in is where I marshal the heavily armed police, with much gesticulating and pointing, to form an extended line and advance up the hillside, halting them some fifty yards or so from the house. We do this several times as the director wants the optimum location for his one camera. Precision, apparently, is very important because of the final scene — or so his assistant explains to me, as he practices his English.

We break and join the queue for the packed lunches. I notice a Chinese, wearing a uniform identical to mine. The assistant explains he is a stuntman and is to be my double.

Strange, I’m one of a dime a dozen extras and I’ve got a double? Why?

The explanation is that my character is to be one of the two fatalities in the episode. The superintendent is arrogant, ambitious and recklessly brave and decides, before engaging the ground troops to go for broke, to use a subterfuge. I am to climb a ladder up to the roof, go through a skylight and shoot the little farmer.

Unfortunately, he is in the room below the skylight, sees me before I see him and peppers me with his scattergun. I dive, presumably dead, headfirst off the ladder, through the skylight and crash through two specially prepared floors, to smash onto the concrete floor of the wash room on the ground floor. I take time to reflect that the provision of a stunt man is not too shabby and definitely a good idea – especially from my point of view.

I remark, with irony, inconceivable naiveté and possibly a foolish, supercilious smile, that they would have to pay me five times what they are paying me now to do that. He looks at me strangely, gets to his feet and hurries off. Within ten minutes, he returns and says, “The director says okay. He pay. It worth it. Now he can camera with you all the way down and show close-up of face.”
I stare at him, then can only say the first thing that comes to mind, which happens to be,”What?”

The open-ended house becomes all too clear. The three guys, with tool belts and a mechanised saw, working on the wooden floors, make sense. I realise that I have moved from lowly extra to the relatively exciting and exalted world of the dare devil stuntman. My sphincter does not welcome the news.

(to be continued)