Just looking at that series and realizing how close to a documentary Monty Python was.
That production was made in 1966. The Guards were in Borneo holding off the Indonesians and in Aden, now Yemen, holding off the Wahabis.
I was 10 years old facing my Eleven Plus exam that would determine whether or not I could attend a grammar school that would put me in line for a "red-brick" university and, if I chose the army, a county regiment or one of those modern outfits, like the Paras, Marines, Tanks, Artillery or Engineers. My schooling was geared towards getting rid of my nasty habit of speaking with a Scots accent and learning to speak received English, or as we knew it, "posh".
My mother's brother, who had spent his two years chauffering one of those gentlemen around the North German Plains in the "Blues", had already escaped to Canada.
My father, who had been rejected for a commission by those same gentlemen while 1 Para was the 1st (Guards) Parachute Battalion on the grounds that his father wasn't known and might have trouble covering the mess bills, made the decision to follow my uncle.
I consider myself a conservative, as most here will know. I have little love for socialism or socialists.
Having said that I can truly understand the depth of feeling that exists towards those self-described arrogant, supercilious twits. If you want to know what a real Tory looks like - those are them.
Thanks to Mum and Dad for getting me out of there. And thank you Canada.
