Mutiny

I saw my grandad cry with laughter twice. Once was when he told me this story of his time in the army. I said you have to send me that. After he had died I looked it up and saw that I never sent a reply. I would often text him and email updates about my life and travels. He would do the same and sign all his texts, Grandad.

I checked our WhatsApp and saw I didn't message him there either. I desperately hope I thanked him in person.

The last time I saw him was when I visited him and my grandma for a day in summer. He had had cancer for two years at that point. I visited more often. I took photos and paid more attention. I have a photo of him waving the car off.

I often wondered about spending a week or two at their house. Just working from there and spending time together. He worked on something every day of his life. Cutting logs, fixing the house, making pickled onions. Once we had some left over fish and chips and I wondered out loud if they could be made as good as new again the next day. Half an hour later he appeared with printed out instructions from a webpage. He typed with one finger on each hand. Flying there was an inconvinience. Their internet was slow. So I never did it.

He often made Christmas dinner for the family. I was going on Christmas day. He died on Christmas eve.

These are his words and punctuation errors.

Mutiny

XX, You asked about the ' mutiny story '

We were a group of RAF national service men who were leaving Malaya to go back to the UK for demob . There were about 20 of us who boarded The Windrush at Singapore.It had come from Hong Kong full of army personnel so the Army were in charge of the ship. We had a small group of RAF Officers who handled any RAF problems.

We were just short of the Suez Canal when the Army called a kit inspection. After the kit inspection a couple of our group found they had lost their mugs .It was decided if there was another kit inspection we would put no mugs out since we were responsible for our kit and would be short when we had to hand it in at demob.

There was another kit inspection and no RAF mugs were put out.

The Army Officer in charge of the deck we were on went mad and had us assemble as a group. He wanted to know why we had not put our mugs. During the ' discussion ' one of our group said " we had lost mugs so we decided " he did not get any further before the Officer shouted " We decided " that's mutiny charge them.

We were all duly charged and the next day all marched into an office in front of the RAF Officers. It was explained that we had had our mugs stolen at the previous inspection and would be short of kit when we arrived back in the UK.

We had just started up the Canal and would not touch land till Southampton 14 days away.

We were sentenced to 7 days confined to ship.

There was a ships radio request programme and some one requested " Seven Lonely days " for the RAF contingent. It slipped through .

Trust all is well with the job and it is still interesting . We went down to Dorset for half term. Bright for the first two days and the last with mist on the other days. XX did a lot of revision so all was well.

Hope XX is getting on well with her last year ?

Grandad

Sent from my iPad