I had gone out to Egypt in 1950 with my mother and brother on the Empire Trooper via Tripoli and Benghazi - a trip that took two weeks. We landed at Port Said and I didn't see how anyone could live in such a hot climate. We went to Ismailia and everything, for a time, seemed very good  - until the problems started.  I had very happy memories of Ismailia - especially the beaches at Lake Timsah.  It always amused me that the French had the best beach next to the Suez Canal, the officers the next best beach, but the Other Ranks beach was right next to the Sweet Water Canal - with whatever that was deposited on the beach!  I seem to remember you needed masses of injections if you fell into the Sweet Water.  Strange to think that before the troubles I could walk anywhere in Ismailia and feel safe - and I always seemed to be swimming in Lake Timsah. I generally had a very happy time in Ismailia and later in Moascar Garrison - I even remember later having to come out onto the main street of Moascar Garrison with all the other school children one morning to wave to General Erskine when he left Egypt.

Photo (pic1) is of a mess-do of a children's party in the RE Sgts Mess in Moascar on the 21st December 1950. I can be seen in front (arms folded) with my brother who is 'peeking out' almost behind me.  Photo (pic2) is a 1952 photo of my late father, Captain Stanley Long RE and my late mother.  The other gentleman facing away from the camera was Major Dennis de ver Davey.  So from these two photos, life in Egypt in Ismailia was very nice - especially for us children who went to school only in the mornings and spent our afternoons on the beaches at Lake Timsah.
 

Pic 1

Pic 2

I am always grateful to the Lancashire Fusiliers because they saved our lives when my family lived in Ismailia. We were one of a number of British families living in the Army Mansions on the edge of Arab Town.  The Egyptians waited until the men had gone to work in Moascar and then attacked the block of flats.  Most families went onto the roof to watch what was happening below, but the feeling was we should get behind the locked doors of our flats in case the rioters managed to get past the front entrance of the Army Mansions. We watched the adjacent NAAFI being attacked, the goods stolen and the building being set on fire.  Later we watched the Fusiliers coming in and saving us, the firing of guns, and the immediate dispersal of the rioters. Later the Paras were brought in - I even looked after their mascot - Pegasus - at his stable in Moascar.
 

Pic 3

Photo (pic3) is of my brother Tony, taken in May 1951 at a ceremony in the Convent in which Sister Anthony lived. I was given religious instruction by Sister Anthony in the school at Moascar and was there when we heard she had been murdered in her Convent.  You can imagine we all felt very sad and there were more than just a few tears shed at that news and also later when we attended her funeral in the Catholic Church in Moascar Garrison.  And I will never forget Sister Anthony. I remember when we children were piled into a Bedford truck in Ismailia to be taken to school each morning in Moascar in the company of two armed servicemen (thanks by the way whoever you were, I never did get a chance before to say “thank you” for looking after us). On occasions we would pass Sister Anthony who would always walk from her Convent near the Sweet Water Canal in Ismailia to Moascar and as she passed through the main gate opposite the AKC Cinema she would walk along the main street which servicemen will remember was lined with trees, most of them with quite low branches, Sister Anthony wore one of those very tall nuns’ headdress things, which seemed to go up forever. And I must admit I was always secretly hoping that she would catch her headdress in one of the branches - but she always seemed to avoid them.

I heard that the Egyptians had also seen her going to Moascar Garrison and told her not to go to the base because they accused her of giving information about themselves to the British - to which she replied she was on God's work to teach the children at the base.  So she continued to visit us - so they murdered her. Bravery was being shown in different ways in Egypt at that time.  Strangely enough I cannot remember the names of any of the other teachers or what subject they taught us, but I can remember Sister Anthony and can even remember us repeating the lessons we were having to learn. She seemed fair but firm.

Talking about the AKC earlier, reminds me that I went there one night and the film started with an opening scene about Manchester - and it was pouring with rain. The whole audience burst out laughing and cheering!

My late fathers' work whilst with the REs was in public relations, which meant that every time there was an incident he would have to cover it and this often involved ‘putting-up’ in our house, journalists who had come out from England to write about the situation. It also meant going out in a car with a pistol and sometimes an armed guard to take pictures of the victims of the ‘incidents’.  On a number of occasions we drove out to the wartime cemeteries to take photographs of serviceman's headstones so the pictures could be sent back to their families in Blighty.  And after that he went down to Kenya for 'Mau-Mau' and then later up to Cyprus for 'Eoka' and then later still over to Aden for 'Flosy' - and so it went on.  But to me there is a personal link between those events and the events of today.

When I stood on the roof of the Army Mansions in Ismailia and watched The Lancashire Fusiliers taking control of the situation after the NAAFI had been burned; I was in the company of my younger brother Tony.  In 1952 we were both sent back to England and to a military boarding school in Dover, it was run by the army and we wore military uniforms.  I cannot believe that as a young teenager I used to get up at 6.00am to clean shoes, greatcoat buttons and make a ‘bed-pack’ before marching to the dining hall to have breakfast.

Later we both joined the Royal Air Force and my brother eventually worked his way up to become a helicopter pilot on Puma Helicopters which were used to take servicemen into battle.  He was sent to Belize in the mid seventies (another war zone nobody remembers) and when the call came in that a couple of Army servicemen from a Scottish Regiment were wounded in the Belize jungle, he went with his aircrew and the units' medical officer to get them out.  Sadly, the tragic result was the helicopter crashed during the effort and everyone - eight men including the unit’s medical officer, died  - August 1976.  My brother and his aircrew were later buried with full military honours beside the helicopter base in Hampshire where they had previously been based and where their families lived.

I now look after these graves and on occasions when I visit and look up at the skies above me - I often see helicopters going to and coming from - guess where? - the deserts and towns of Iraq.  So for me there is a personal link to those days of fighting in the towns, villages and deserts of Egypt fifty years ago and today's servicemen fighting in the towns, villages and deserts of Iraq.    We seem to have gone full-circle.

Thank you Glenn for your recollections.  Aye, Jock Marrs and Dick Woolley.
August 2003.