Midge Ure – Lasting Camaraderie

I was at a West Ham football match recently and I was there in my rig. It was a Submariner’s weekend. I went there in my rig. It was Liverpool versus West Ham.

I took my eldest boy, we managed to get tickets for him, but what we were going up there to do, was do the flag waving for West Ham as part of their Remembrance weekend, or the Remembrance Celebration, and we were on the pitch prior to the game, waving the flags, me and another Warrant Officer and a whole load of people we took up.

As the game started, we came off the pitch, we made our way round the Stadium, up into the high seats right up the top of the West Ham end, and we were all in rig, and as we came up through the crowd, everybody stood up to clap and applaud and it was quite moving to be fair. I’m not really used to that.

The Army get that a lot, but we came through and everybody was like … we sat down and within 5 minutes, I could hear, “Midge, Midge” and I’m thinking someone’s not shouting at me, and I turned round and three rows behind me, was an ex-Submariner, Bernie Clifton, who was a Steward onboard my submarine back in the day. He goes, “Midge, I thought that was you out there.” I says, “I’ve been watching it on the telly” ‘cos I saw the Dolphins.

So, I got to meet him and we had a good chat. So, it’s things like that. I may not have spent a lot of time with him but we both knew that what we’d been through.

That those trips out to the Middle East, leaving family, doing stuff, and I’ve kept up to date with a lot of them on Facebook, so you still see their lives now