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I was involved in doing lots of things just after the War finished. We embarked on a P&O Ship called the ‘Orion’ and we sailed out from Liverpool on Christmas Eve, and we went through a very bad storm and all it was all battened down and we got through the storm and then we eventually got through to Malta — Valetta Harbour, and while we were there our sister ship was in harbour as well. Then we moved on to Port Said and then we moved down to a place called Quassasin in Egypt. I was there for just a few days, but because of my work and knowing that we were moving north, we moved up by train through up into Beirut, an then by truck through to a place called Beckmazine-- near Tripoli — a village up in the hills.

When our battalion was based near Tripoli in Northern Lebanon, every month I had to drive down with all the worn out clothing to Beirut stores. It’s a close road and its about 40 miles from Tripoli down to Beirut and on this occasion we were driving back and each one side of the coast road, the land side, there were orange groves. We decided we would have a treat for everyone back in our barracks so we stopped the truck and raided these orange trees and we had probably about 100 weight of oranges. We thought that was pretty good, so we got it in the truck and drove off. About 10 miles from the camp we thought we’d try these oranges; and we discovered we’d wasted our time, as they turned out to be marmalade making oranges: the bitter ones!

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Becky Barugh of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Bill Kendall and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

See more of Bill's stories:

• A White-Faced Inspector
• Chipolatas and Chips
• Doody
• Given a bit of cheek
• High-Tailed it home
• How it all began
• I was BKFJ434
• ’Let him go and let him tarry’
• In a split second timing
• Rotten Bananas
• Waste not, Want not
• It was coming straight for me
• Using more of my nine lives
• Tiny and Shiny
• Free post
• Time just came and went
• No. 1 London

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