Colin Hamilton – Jamaica for eight weeks with SAS and Royal Welsh Fusiliers

 But this was Exercise Calypso Hop. He said, “Don’t fall for that silly game.” I said, “Well it sounds quite interesting” so I volunteered for it, and I got a signal back saying, “Would you come in for an interview” and it was an exchange to Jamaica for eight weeks to go out with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and the SAS Intelligence Corps and two Leading sailors and me, and we went out to Jamaica for eight weeks.

The day after we got out to Jamaica, a state of emergency was declared, where they were shooting … it got very political in ’75, 76, very political out there, quite dangerous.

The Pound halved but the Army made our salary up which the Navy wouldn’t have done, and we had to go escorted wherever we went.

Now I was based in the Army Mess, the 1st Jamaican Regiment Army Mess, the Sergeant’s Mess, in Kingston and I had to right the way around, it was about 15 miles to Port Royal which was where the pirates used to live, and I was teaching HMJS Cagway which was their Navy Base.

I was teaching them about diesels. They had a problem. They kept choking up their diesels and when I got out there I said, “Well, why are you running your diesels? Why don’t you plug them into the shore supply?” “Well, the shore supply is broken.” I said, “Well that’s irresponsible. You’re running a refrigerator on a generator.”

I said, “No wonder the things get choked up.”