Missed opportunity

There's a bit of a story to this simple blip of a packet of Rolos. Grab a seat.

The image stuck on the tube was taken a few days after the surrender of Argentine forces in Port Stanley. The Argentinians were divested of their weaponry, placed on ships and sent back whence they came, not before Johnny Noone forcibly removed a stolen Royal Marine jumper from one of the unfortunate prisoners, it was John's and had been nicked from Moody Brook barracks when the Argentines came for their visit. JN was the Sgt Major of the Bootnecks based on the islands, Naval Party 8901 in official language.

I digress, I wasn't there, having left the Corps nearly 3 years previously. All the TV coverage and bits of film caused lot's of shouts and yelps as former comrades were spotted being heroic or simply toiling against the conditions.

The bloke in the centre of this image is Yorkie Malone; he was Troop Sgt of 8 Troop, Zulu Company, 45 Commando. (45 was the primary arctic trained unit, so they were ideally disposed to coping with the climate) The battle cry of Zulu company is, strangely enough, "ZULU!" Imagine you are an Argentinian, far from home, cold wet and hungry, knowing that forces are coming your way......then out of the night 90 of them hit you hard screaming ZULU at maximum volume. What are you going to do after filling your nappy?

It was a given that you carried, somewhere safe, a piece of food which would be there as a last ditch bite to get you through the hardest times. Yorkie had a packet of Rolos hidden in his fighting order, I lie, he had two packets hidden. The bloke on the left is his Troop Officer, in the original image you can see the look of amazement on his face when he realised Malone had sweeties. The poor bloke on the right is on the edge of shock, he has the 1000 metre stare. He's there but he's not, the realisation that he is safe has just hit him smack between the ears. A couple of hours later they were on board and getting rid of the grime of war. Many of the lads, despite their assiduous self care and training suffered from Trench Foot, a terrible problem which permanently damages the nerves, consequently when the air turns cold they are all in agony.

Anyway. A few years ago I asked Yorkie if I could work on his picture. Once it was cleaned up it was sent to Nestlé, where luckily a former Bootneck thought it would make a great advertising campaign; except the suits shot the idea down. These tubes were sold last Saturday at an annual 14 mile Bimble for RM charities. Yorkie sent me a roll as a pressy; the asking price was £1, most blokes gave £5 or £10 claiming they had no change, that's the sort of person they are and always will be. If you know anybody near the top of the pile at Nestlé perhaps you could let them know they have really missed out on a huge profit.

Last night I had the strangest dream......