were still laughing. Then Paddy Connolly and a couple of others joined us and we made it a party. I taught Sandra some Ogden Nash poems, we all sang “Carmen”, “Carousel” and so on till they threw us out at 1.30 am. The ladies left whereupon the singing doubled in volume and trebled in indecency. Having got in the mood we banged on the doors and insisted they sell us a bottle of wine apiece or we wouldn’t go away, and then we set off to Fontainebleau Forest to continue. We meant to go up the hill to Les Rochers – a rocky outcrop, but Ginger Edmonson fell flat on his face in a clearing and wouldn’t get up, so we all sat along a fallen log drinking wine and singing at the pitch of our voices – joined by Ginger in the choruses from the horizontal. It was raining cats and dogs by this time but we never noticed….
When the bottles were empty we sang hymns (with descants) and then all the National Anthems we could remember in respectful hiccups – even left out the rude words to the Star Spangled Banner in deference to our GI mate, and then reeled back to camp singing the Red Flag. Jolly good fun all round. Kept losing Ginger and having to go back to prise him off trees he was making mad passionate love to under the impression they were Brigitte Bardot, but got back eventually. A very pleasant evening, though all the deer and squirrels in that part of the forest probably had to be treated for shock and an owl was heard to declare he was flying south with the swallows come winter time…..
11 July 1957
Had the doubtful honour yesterday of being the RAF representative on a Guard of Honour for a visit of the Netherlands Chief of Air Staff. Reasonably amusing in prior practice when the German AF bloke, on “replacing standards” missed the frog thinggie on his belt with the end of the pole and nearly did himself a permanent injury. Then the Belgian bloke dropped his and nearly speared the Canadian with the pointy bit on the end of the staff. The actual “do” went off all right except that those of us on the downwind side got the standards blown in our faces by the strong winds and were so busy trying not to smother in yards of heavy silk we never saw the chap at all.
28 June (after motorcycle accident – from the RAF section of the Military Hospital)
…while the RAF nurses are wonderful, the PMRAFNS sisters are a bit humourless – one of them looked at my scabby knee and said “leaking sanguineous pus, I see” and I said “I wondered what was the bloody matter” and she gave me an officer type LOOK… However, Sgt Malcolm Marsh, my Army mate with a 350cc BSA – who is even madder than me – called in and provided me with his yellow silk dressing gown with silver dragons on it, from Hong Kong, and an Egyptian fez, so that when the MO came in I was hobbling about with that lot on, a stick, dark glasses and Maries one and a half foot long cigarette holder. He took one look, said “My God!” and the Matron had a fit. Then he looked at the temperature chart at the end of the bed which Malcolm and I had “modified” (details forgotten, sent home and mislaid) which caused some hilarity (except with aforesaid PMRAFNS) Not to mention Dave, another patient and I had been having races up and down the corridors on wheelchairs, with appropriate noises – dropping down to third for Maternity Ward Bend, into top past Annex straight and changing down for Kitchen Curve…..and that’s why they’re letting me out this weekend.