大象传媒

This story was added to the People's War website by Eleanor Fell, at Freshwater Library, on behalf of John Warry, who understands the terms and conditions of the website

In 1942 I was posted to Egypt in the Middle East and I was trooped out on the Queen Mary with about 15,000 troops, mostly English, but there were some Americas as well.

We landed at Port Tewfik and from there we were sent to the Signals main depot at Maadi where we had a a period of aclimatisation for a couple of weeks. Then I was posted to 1st Bn Royal Tank Regiment in the Western Desert.

In this photo I was in Cairo taking 4 days leave before going to the battle of El Alamein. I didn't do the things that toursit do these days in Cairo, like visiting the Pyramids. I was just resting up, and eating at the NAAFI clubs - to avoid getting any stomach complaints. There were a lot of English ladies out there, whose husband were in business in Cairo, and they had formed a club to look after the soliders. They would give us cups of tea and biscuits and somewhere to rest for a while.

There were places to go where there more 'lively' entertainment - Shar El Burka was one such road in Cairo - but not for me! If the military police cuaght you down there, you'd have been in been in big trouble. They used to shut the street down on a regular basis, but it always came back.

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