You won't read very much from me about my tour of duty in Scotland. Not that it wasn't a very fine place. But I was only there for six months. So these are most of what I recall.
The base MachRihanish had no less than a ten-thousand foot runway, built as it was for Vulcan bombers. Yet the dinky Logan Air bush plane that I flew in from London on still managed to bounce its wheels once in the grass ahead of the tarmac. And I think they overloaded the plane a bit with luggage. I say that because they had to bring out a saw-horse to prop up the tail before they could turn the tail engine off.
The nearest city, Cambletown, had a population something close to five thousand. Yet I seem to recall that there were more than fifty pubs. And in every single one of them the only song locals would let anyone play on the juke box was Paul McCartney's Mull of Kintyre. Oh how I learned to hate that dirge.
Paul McCartney himself had a home there. I met people there who knew him and had been to his parties. But all the while that I was there, he was stateside on his band's Wings over America tour.
There were only two decent restaurants. Both were Chinese. One was very excellent. I never got to the other one.
I would very much have liked to see more of the country. But on a six-month detachment you don't get to ship a motorcycle. I got around a little bit as MOMAG Transportation PO, but that included mastering the fine art of siphoning diesel fuel. I also got to drive a tractor with ten forward speeds and three reverse. And I also read a fair number of books, mostly while waiting for the fork lifts to charge. The barracks had a room set aside for an honor-system library. And my office was out there in one of the unheated hangars, a building surrounded by a ten foot moat of dry gravel. There was no one soft-footed enough to sneak up upon me in my lair. That same hangar was also where we practiced our skills at marksmanship, which I'll get to later.
In the winter, when I first arrived, it was always pitch black in the mornings on our way to work. And it was pitch black again when we came home in the afternoon. But the air was clear. So clear it was that you truly could not see your hand right in front of your face should it be dark, which it mostly was. To know where your hand was you had to wave it back and forth and see the distant farm lights wink out. A street lamp cast a bright circle upon the ground, but without an illuminated cone of air in between.
The mine shop was protected by British Air Force Police. They with their dogs would walk a patrol around our areas at night. This, so that no Irish from across the straight may come to rob us of our munitions for their little 300-year skirmish. But the minemen were better armed yet. We had eight-foot-long half-inch-bore blow guns made from electrical tubing. These fired heavy darts made from sharpend coat-hangar wire. The cones on the darts were two-stage affairs (previously perfected while on Okinawa): a small cone ahead of a larger one. The smaller afforded minimum drag while still assuring aerodynamic stability. The larger cone to mate with the half-inch bore of the electrical tubing. The two cones would separate just outside the barrel. That was our first line of defense. Secondly we also had medium-weight shuriken cut out from hammered-flat banding corners. Russ Butler, Spit Louden and I held regular practice with both of these and became above-average marksmen. Our practice target was a silhouette marked out on the inside of the ten-foot-high sliding hangar door. One among the BAFP, Cpl. Alan Milne (from Aberdeen, Scotland...a good friend of mine whom I'd like to contact if anyone should know where he is), said that if there were ever trouble he was going to run straight to us and seek protection.
During the middle of my tour, someone among the crew had bestowed upon the shop a mascot. A black cat just out-growing its kitten stage. Now as just so happens, there was at that time only one black guy in the whole command. (I think that it might have been Steve Shobe, but can’t be sure after all these years. I only just now dreged up Russ Butler’s name to go with this narrative. So please inform, whoever knows.) And wouldn't you know that he of all persons suggested that the crew name it Nigger. Nearly half went along with the plan. But I argued caution, "No way is anyone ever going to believe this was your idea after we're gone." I offered instead that we just call it what folks were going to end up calling it anyway. And the vote swung my way. We named it "D.C.", short for "damn cat".
And last but not least... In the whole of the Cambletown metropolis there was only one theatre. This impressive cinema complex (actually just a small brown building) only opened once a week on Saturdays, and then only for a single matinee. And the marquee outside advertised 101 Dalmatians the entire six months I was there.