Just stumbled across this;
How cool it that?
On the footage of the gun with the fecking great Union Flag, I’m the one stood on the back right of the gun. (If you take the business end of the barrel to be the front.) I’m seen from the back with a red shamal (that was how it was pronounced, don’t know if that’s how you spell it. The head scarf they wear.) worn as a scarf, and seen pushing a rod into the breach to test the shell had been rammed in correctly. It was also my job to clean, prime and maintain the breach. Hence the slang job name ‘breach creature’. There are two guns shown on the clip, ours it the one with feck off flag.
A few corrections though, it was 74 Battery, the Battleaxe Company, 32 Heavy Regiment. Geordie Walsh was a Bombadier (equivalent to a Corporal in the Infantry) not a Brigadier (equivalent to god incarnate to a lowly gunner).
At about 39 seconds you see the view from behind my side of the gun as it fires. Watch how it bounces a 28 tonne gun in the air twice before settling. As demonstrated by me standing to attention,”FIRE!”, bounce twice then crack open the breach.
Happy days. So not!
I’d never seen that footage before, so it was a nice surprise. Looks more fun than it was.
Buck.