SHELDRAKE: Hi-Tea with the Master Gunner

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Hi-Tea with the Master Gunner

I attended the afternoon tea with the Master Gunner at the Royal Chulan Hotel KL on 3 April 2016. I was glad that I did as there were about 50 other retired Gunners present. It was a pleasant gathering with the adage Once A Gunner Always A Gunner. There were so much to stories catch up. A favourite GPO of mine confessed that he had played a trick on me. We were in Bau area Sarawak. I wanted to deploy a troop of guns at 1800 hours to which the GPO was not too keen to do so. He preferred a first light deployment the next day. However how could he disobey his BC? A simple but very effective plan.

I called him on the Bty command net on the HF radio and ordered for him to deploy urgently that evening. He pretended the radio conversation was full of static interference and kept telling me so. I eventually gave up giving the orders that evening and he deployed the next morning, when the Bty command net was at strength five. We had a good laugh but I could not pick a bone with him now as he retired as a two star general. That was regimental life then. No harm done. The prank was worth his sleep.

I also took the opportunity to snap some photos with my old iPhone of Gunners not seen in this blog for sometime. I forget some of the names though. I hope Rama or Ganeson will help out naming them. I wish to apologise for the poor quality and low resolution of the photos below. I have taken a new hobby of photographing birds instead. I have lost my skills in taking portrait photos of people and I am also using an old iPhone to boot. I hope somebody can take on this important task to update us with photos of old Gunners not met/seen for sometime. This blog will be a treasure in prosperity for new Gunners to come.
Thank you.