Hello and Welcome to the site LarryD, there is a lot of ex R.A.F. onsite. Have a great time with us and happy posting. As for R.A.F. Gan i had a 48 hour stop over.

Welcome LarryD to the fold 

Edited by ranroz - 01 March 2010 at 11:10pm

Hello Larry, I'm the fella that ranroz mentioned who was in Borneo, in Tawau in fact ! 1964 to 66 based in Brunei but spent a lot of those months in Tawau and Sibu. To start with we (the Army Air Corps) had a Beaver and two smaller Auster Mk 9's detached to 5 Malay Brigade, Tawau. One crashed in the sea on a recce sortie and its remains lay on the side of the runway almost infront of the Tower for ages, the other was later detached somewhere else. I used to fly the Beaver. I still have Beaver Fever, it's an incurable ailment creating a love only second to that for your wife LOL.

Well I'm a (serving) Pongo and proud of it! All these crabs seem to be taking over. I'll have to start talking all posh and using a knife and fork for dinner!


Welcome to the site, have fun and get the drinks in!

Legs is back,,,Had some great army mates,especially on Gan[Royal Signals]once we trained them to use a fork,we found them almost human except on the sports field where the Army had only issued a single multi-purpose pair of boots to each squaddie,ie,work and play!!!!Ouch..Still great friends with one of them after 40yrs..Anybody whos been there will remember the advert/trailer in the cinema----Brylcreem a little-dab-will-do you...We are having a reunion on Gan on 21/29th March,,56 of us,unfortunately no Army.......Regards Gurkhas,,there were of course Gurkhas all over Borneo,and regular visitors to our little naafi on Tawau,where they used to drink large amounts of rum/blackcurrent.Now I did not get to know any of them very well but,,as Teeny Weeny airways said in a previous post,,,sometimes something happens that makes the hairs on your neck stand-up...Well my farm was just on the edge of Otterburn firing ranges and the Gurkhas were and still are regular visitors..One day one of the other farmers calls in asking me if I had any goats or old hens I wanted rid of as some Gurkhas had been asking him for some things for some festival or other..I did have a few things so I tells him to send the boys along..They[4]turned up later that afternoon with a crate in the landrover for the goat/hens,,but first we are in the house having a cup of coffee and a chat..We of course gets around to service and I tells them about Tawau,,the corporal tells me his father had been in Borneo and that he had some photos of his father in his kitbag..Out comes the photos and here is his dad standing outside the guardpost at Tawau.No kidding 60yrs old and my eyes filled-up,,must be getting soft..Anyway loaded the stuff into the landrover[refused any payment]and away they went--Kent somewhere--for their leave before they went out to Afghanistan..Have not seen them since,so hope they are all OK  LarryD...

Only at Tawau for the four months leading up to the end of confrontation..We were billeted in the blocks,I remember mine being called Sandakan and the roomboy --Smiler! What else???.....Remember going into Tawau town with some Hampshire infantry to the swimming pool and being approached by a young man wondering if I needed any female company,,politely declined of course??,but remember coming back to camp in a 3tonner and the driver running over a snake that was the full width of the road and as thick as a telegraph pole,,we did not get out to see if it was OK.....Few more bits of stories as I remember them...LarryD....

Hello boys--regards a previous post ie Gurkhas--had a postcard today[redirected]from those boys,,been to Afghanistan and now in Belize--not put on to are they????  PS message was--goat very nice,try and get one for when we come back to Otterburn.....LarryD