My National Service with The Suffolk Regiment

My National Service with The Suffolk Regiment
By Martin Bell, OBE
as told to the editors of the Cyprus section

Martin Bell arrived in Cyprus 1957 with the Suffolk Regiment. Subsequently he was the Chief War Correspondent of the BBC for 32 years and later the lndependent MP for Tatton.

Born on 31 August 1938 in Redisham, Suffolk, he is the son of an author and the founder of The Times crossword. 'My father could write in a more arresting manner about the pond life in his back garden than I could about the world's conflicts and commotions that I chronicled for the BBC,' he says. His early education was at the Leys Public School, Cambridge, before going on to Cambridge University, where he repaid his family's support by graduating with a first-class honours degree in English. He joined the BBC as a reporter in Norwich in 1962 as a 24-year old, following his graduation from King's College, Cambridge with a first-class honours degree.

Three years later he moved to London to work as a national radio reporter. One of his producers was BSW contributor David Carter.Bell's distinguished career began as a foreign affairs correspondent, with his first assignment in Ghana. He has covered 11 conflicts and reported from 90 countries, making his name with coverage of the war in Vietnam.

Bell receives emergency treatment from a 'medic'
in Sarajevo after receiving shrapnel wound.

His last assignment for the BBC was the three-cornered civil war in Bosnia, which followed the break-up of Yugoslavia. Here he was hit by shrapnel in the groin while reporting from Sarajevo. He jokes: 'I was terrified to put my hand down my trousers.' His journalism won him Royal Television Society 'Reporter of the Year' awards in 1977 & 1993, and in 1992 he was awarded an OBE.

He has now returned to his profession of journalism and has become a fundraiser for various charities in his capacity as 'ambassador'. UK's UNICEF Ambassador for Humanitarian Emergencies.

How it all started

Basic training at the regimental depot of the Suffolk Regiment came as a great shock to me. I'd led a very sheltered and gentle life and hadn't actually mingled that much with my fellow men. I wasn't ready to be told what to do and ordered about and so on and remember when I first picked up my uniform I asked a question of the quartermaster and I got a very rude response. I suddenly realised that this was a world with which I was familiar at all. I had never had to obey orders before. Things were done consensually in the family and I'd had this very sheltered life. I'd been at a private school since I was aged eight and lived in a quiet village, where we didn't mix or mingle very much.Thus I was a very shy young man so I think found the experience of basic training particularly brutal, although we had an extremely good platoon sergeant, 'Mack' Sennett, who is talked about a bit in my book (In Harm's Way).
As they all did, he instilled into you a sense that there was only one regiment of any worth in of the whole of British Army and that you had the good fortune to belong to it. Then he shouted at us in a terrible way. It's a different world, a different world. We lived in a barrack room out of the Victorian Age. It's all demolished now.

Basic training lasted about three months and I think it was fairly conventional, nothing out of the ordinary. Most of all I remember the vast amount of drill, which I didn't mind. I was fairly fit in those days, so I could do it. I wasn't too shambolic. It was the fatigues I hated, I'd done some jobs about the house, but not in a regimented, ordered way. I remember one day leaning out of the windows of the education centre and thinking: 'What the hell am I doing? What has this got to do with soldiering?' Likewise painting the stones white, it was awful, the bullshit factor seemed to me so unnecessary and so, of course, was all the shouting which went on. This doesn't happen anymore except on formal parades. Years later I went to see the Cheshire Regiment, before they went to Bosnia in the summer of '92, to talk to them about Bosnia and I thought 'this is a very quiet barrack square, nobody is shouting at anybody.'

When I was in Bosnia I went to a big British Army place and there on the wall was a little sign that said: 'If you were to get your hair out it would make the RSM extremely happy.' What a change in culture! My companions were ordinary soldiers, they were farm workers, they were factory workers, I think one of them was the son of a farmer, the usual sort of a bunch-bank clerks and people like that. I remember at my medical, there was a sergeant who was particularly good at spotting, before you even opened your mouth, what he called 'college boys'. These were kids who hadn't left school at the earliest possible opportunity and who were, therefore, to be singled out for special fatigues and extra trench digging.

Officer tests

Then I went forward for WOSB (War Office Selection Board), which I failed memorably. This must have been about eight months in, I was called up on about the 18th June 57, so the WOSB would have been probably some time in August. I failed fairly comprehensively, as I've recorded in my book. My good friend Robin (Sivey), who is now a Major General, became the president of what is now the Regular Commissions Board (RCB), so he was able to look up my files from thirty-seven years before. He discovered I'd had to take my intelligence test twice, because they just couldn't believe I was as stupid as I appeared to be on the results of the first one. On the second one I did better, but I failed lamentably with all the things you had to do - you know, with poles and ropes and planks crossing imaginary rivers. Actually, I went back when Robin was in charge and looked at it and it hadn't changed at all. I was not made to be an officer. I later discovered to my interest - and surprise - that Michael Aspel (another TV broadcaster) was in much the same state. He also failed his WOSB!

Off to Cyprus

I went back to the regiment and it must have been in September that we flew out to Cyprus. We took a bus to Southend and went on a charter plane, an elderly jet, a Comet. It was that long ago and very uncomfortable. Had I flown before? You know, I don't think I had and I had hardly been abroad. The family didn't travel; my father had never left Suffolk, or even the Waveney Valley. He could find more of interest there than anywhere else in the world. At Nicosia, the old airport, which is now not used because of the partition, I remember the smell. As we touched down, it had just rained and there was that extraordinary small of Cyprus - I just remember that smell. We went straight down the road to our camp.

We were in tents the whole time I was there. We lived six to a tent, the square ones, and there was a very strict regimen, except on Sundays. There was all the usual sort of business with the bed pack, squaring it away, we still did that and we had a muster parade every morning. All the tents were in line, there must have been about seven or eight in each and the ablutions (lavatories) were at the top, consisting of holes in the ground with bits of sacking round them and we had baths. You never really expected any privacy and you never got any. We all mucked in together and when you were on the bog was the only time you were ever alone actually.

Typical tent lines in Cyprus for British
forces in Cyprus during the late 50s

The food was pretty basic, but I still love high cholesterol Army breakfast. I adore it to this day and only ever have tea with sugar as a result, because that's all there was. You didn't have any other kind. The orderly officer would come round at mealtimes, asking if there were any complaints. There was not a great choice of fare those days. It was pretty basic, but it did the business. What I actually remember of my time in Cyprus is long periods of inactivity and acute boredom periods of anti-riot duties. We were the specialists-the Suffolk Regiment. They sent the wilder Scots and Irish regiments to the mountains to hunt terrorists, but the gentler, or supposedly gentler, county regiments, they kept for patrolling in the city.

After I had done my induction training in Cyprus, they attached me to the intelligence section, which at that time was eight strong. By the time I left, nearly two years later, I was its only component. We had an Intelligence sergeant, who was a bit of a blusterer. No, he wasn't from the Intelligence Corps. The section was entirely regimental…

I used to hang out with the other 'college boys'. There was one called Chris Dunkley, who was a very brilliant linguist and he was one of the interpreters and got extremely angry about Britain's Colonial rule in Cyprus, but it didn't seem to bother me at all. I do remember not having any political opinions. If I did -and I've still got some letters I wrote from Cyprus - somewhere in my attic. They really are from a very stuffy young man.

Turkish riots

A local journalist who got in the
way of the riots and paid the price.

We dealt mainly with Turkish riots. We would be trucked down to the big central police station in Nicosia, which was more or less the dividing line between the Greek and Turkish parts of the city. It was known as the Mason Dixon Line. The Turks were in an extremely angry mood, honestly can't remember why. I didn't have a single clue about the politics of it all, had no understanding whatsoever. We had hardly anything to do with the local people, except that I would sometimes go with the Intelligence Officer and we would take coffee with the mukhtar (headman) of a tiny little Turkish village located between two Greek ones. In those days they still lived among each other and the Turks needed their hands holding, they needed to know that we were around, so every so often we'd go and take coffee with them… And I got very close to my two Turkish interpreters, Sami, and the other one. I can't remember his name. They weren't policemen. They were civilians and they were nice chaps.

I went to see one of them years later, when I was a journalist, about ten years later and by then, of course, it was a divided island and they had this car sort of permanently parked in the garage. It hadn't been moved for years, because of the economic blockade on the Turks.

The first death We had our own area. We put pins on maps and went on little intelligence patrols to pick up leaflets and things in the villages. So mostly when we were doing this anti-riot stuff, I was just sitting at a desk in the police station, sort of logging incidents, but occasionally I'd go out with my company. There was one occasion when the regiment actually killed some of the rioters, I forget how many. We also used to go on search operations outside the walls of the city looking for lethal weapons. We did a whole lot of those. I remember on one of them seeing a whole bunch of foreign journalists, coming along at the end of the day and looking at our haul and saying to myself 'That would be a nice way to earn a living.' This was the first time I'd ever really met the press in action.

Looking for the enemy

I felt very uncomfortable about searching people's houses, although I didn't do much of the actual searching. Looking back it was kind of outrageous. We came up with kitchen knives and things like that. We didn't find much. I was on duty one night - we'd had a tip off that Grivas was in a safe house outside the walls - and there was a terrific sense of excitement that we were going to be the ones that got him. But it was a false trail and there was nobody there. In all the time I was in Cyprus - eighteen months or more - I only heard one shot fired in anger. We were crossing one of the bridges and we hit the floor quite severely. I've heard a few shots fired in anger since, but my first was in Nicosia in the summer of '58, which was a hot summer in every possible sense. We had no idea where that particular shot came from. It could have been either side - Greek or Turkish.

Time off

There was an awful lot of what you could call 'Rest and Recreation' in my memory. I seem to have spent the best part of two years asleep, because there wasn't really that much to do… But there were regular expeditions at weekends to the beaches. These must have been East of Kyrenia and those below Bellapais-lovely and great fun. We'd go somewhere in trucks, with not much in the way of an escort. There would be somebody detailed off to have a rifle - otherwise, we'd go unarmed. I think the city itself was off limits from about March '58. In any case, I didn't go out drinking. I wasn't that kind of a chap and I didn't have much money. I got paid twenty-eight shillings a week I remember (£1.40, roughly equivalent to £20 today).

My first Christmas on the island? A diplomatic family very kindly rang up the padre and said "Do you know a soldier who would like to spend Christmas with a family?" I think his name was Ballard and I think he must have been the Island's Attorney General. It was a very nice break. I was having a hard time from the RSM at the time - I forget why. The regiment laid on quite a lot of things and I played in the hockey team. There was the cinema and they had live shows coming through and we had musical turns. They did try. There was an unbelievable amount of drinking. I became the secretary of the corporals' mess and had to organise one of their big bashes and it was just incredible. The way the sergeants drank was unbelievable.

Best Education

The troopship Dunera on which Bell left Cyprus

We travelled in a troopship, the name of which began with a 'D' - the Dunera, that was it. I was detailed off as a kind of temporary schoolmaster on board, I taught the officers' children and generally looked after them. I was an acting sergeant by then, which was quite revolutionary, because they didn't make up national servicemen to sergeant - except in the Education Corps and the Intelligence Corps. I think I'd adjusted quite well. It was the best education I ever had, much better than any of my schools or colleges. It was two years' training in the university of life. What Sergeant Sennett had taught me I then put into use in the war zones of the world, right up to Bosnia. How to stay alive in dangerous places, so National Service was very good for that. And I did get a sense of regimental pride and I now do attend the Minden Day. At this moment, I'm wearing the Suffolk Regiment tie.

But I have very strong feelings about the way the emergency ended and our failure to live up to the guarantees we had given in the peace agreement. That was outrageous: we just walked away.

The division of Cyprus

The present problems of Cyprus are not, I think, the direct result of our colonial occupation, if you want to call it that, or the ownership of the Island. The problems are caused by the way we left and failure to deliver on our guarantees. There's no excuse for that, none whatsoever and, of course, we got our military bases. At the time I accepted that we were in Cyprus to perform a counter terrorist operation. It didn't bother me.

Martin Bell's last view of Cyprus in 1959

Sir Hugh Foot departs Cyprus on 16 August
1960, the day the Island became independent.

I think that if I now came into such a situation as a journalist, knowing what I know, I know it would have bothered me, because we were acting against the manifest will of the majority of the people, who wanted independence. But again it was the sort of the problem the British are magnificent at dealing with-playing off one side against the other. I think Sir Hugh Foot, the last British Governor, was a decent man. Remember Bitter Lemons - a book about the Cyprus problem - Lawrence Durrell, the author of it, was a liberal and a brilliant writer. He worked for the Colonial Office-it seemed a much more natural thing in those days, when large parts of the map were still coloured red. I was a callow youth of 18, so what did I know? I had no political consciousness

Life's basics

Another thing I would say: those two years of National Service were very good for us, but very bad for the Army. Conscription is bad for the Army because it introduces into its ranks a whole cross-section of society and a lot of intelligent people, but also a lot of disaffected ones as well, and, thus, creates a whole culture of 'days to do'. But NS does teach you some basic survival instincts, like 'never volunteer for anything'.

I got a hell of a bawling out on the day I left the Army from RSM Ginger Lowe. I had had my hair cut the day before and, because I was fairly well-spoken for a soldier and because I was wearing 'civvies', the barber thought I was an officer and gave me an 'officers' haircut'.

Cyprus independence brought its ironic moments:
ects a section of British Paras, the scourge
of his terrorist gangs.

RSM Lowe didn't approve at all and marched me into the office of Captain North, the Adjutant, and all the time bellowing and calling me 'a disgrace to the regiment'. To my surprise, Captain North then tried to persuade me to sign on for another three years! Absolutely hopeless! There are things in life that we enjoy having done, but I did not enjoy doing National Service. I'd have to be forced to do it again, but having been forced to do it, I know it would be immensely valuable.

Apart from anything else, it deferred for two years my entry to Cambridge - so that I was that much more mature when I got there and better able to benefit from the education. It was a couple of 'gap years' that we had. If I had been smart, I'd have done the studying first and the soldiering afterwards, and then I wouldn't have had to do the soldiering!

NS effectively came to an end in 1960, but I never thought of that.National Service helped me to combat my congenital shyness. It helped me get on with all sorts of people and you came out without too much pride or pomposity.

I kept in touch with some Army friends for a while. Occasionally I get letters from them. Once a year we meet at the barracks or what's left of them on Minden Day. We all march past, but the regiment went out of business a long time ago.

Martin Bell, wearing his trademark white suit, receives a cheque for
UNICEF from former members of the Suffolk Regiment band.

Back to Cyprus Index