大象传媒

Bill Gibb was a Scot from Inverurie near Aberdeen. His dream was to become a para, but during training at Catterick he damaged his back badly - compressing two veratibra. This was to dog him all his life.

Bill was a great logician though so signed up with the Signals, serving across the Middle East. One of this roles was to act as an 'interpreter' between some of the Scottish soldiers and their English officers.

Bill was a dab hand at Morse code and intrumental in communications.

He was never in the front line although many of his friends and colleagues were killed in Palestine.

Bill's favourite story was when he was on guard duty one day and he had been tipped off by a Palestinian friend there was going to an attack. Late at night he saw a shape looming on the horizon and opened fire.

When the lights were switched on he found it was a cactus put up there by 'his friend'. The powers that be weren't happy, but Bill was pleased to see he had managed to wing it.

Bill was a good man. He never recovered from the malaria he caught in Egypt or the back injury. But he remembered the people of the middle east, especially Iraq, fondly.

Bill was my Dad. He died in 2001.

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