"That Bloody Monkey"

Tom's recollection, "That bloody monkey near the NAAFI, his name was Machet and had a cage between the block's and the  NAAFI. When he was let out he was hooked up to a line running between the monsoon drain and the NAAFI, if you went for a beer at night and nobody told you he was out, which of course no one did, (the B******S), once you jumped the drain you would hear the hook up the line start to move, and he moved bloody fast, you knew then to start running, and you would be running that fast when you got to the door you could not stop, you would go bursting through the NAAFI door and of course every one there knew exactly why you were running.

That first pint of Tiger went down pretty fast!!

Ted Duffy, Air Dispatcher outside the billet at Butterworth 1967. Tom I can only assume the one on his shoulder is your long lost friend "Machet".

(Please find a link to the Air Dispatchers site on my "Links" page)

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Big Blue & Bimbo

Recalled by Arthur Green

Ex. 487 Signals Unit

I couldn't help be tickled by "that bloody monkey"!!
it took me back to my own little sojourn at Butterworth from '56 thru' to early '59 when 487 Signals Unit transferred down to Sembawang thence to Seletar - such dreadfully civilised places. OUR monkey at Butterworth was called "Bimbo" - he was a Rhesus bloody negative as far as we were all concerned. Toothpaste, cigarettes nay, even bloody Brylcreem! the little ratbag was into everything. But the most excruciating occasion occurred when he went after "Big Blue". BB was a large ill-bred but handsome yellow Labby type dog. He was the only living being to my knowledge that could make mincemeat out of the excess hard tack biscuits that some eedjit in FEAF had overbooked when requisitioning "K" rations. Periodically we had these things foisted onto us for supper in an effort to reduce the bikky mountain. Anyway, BB in order to overcome the effect of his awesome calorie-intake took to kipping under some palm trees behind our living block. Bimbo was such an a***hole that we could never leave him off harness unattended. So we used to attach him via a long wandering line to BB's collar. BB, to ease the weight on his guts that the "ship's biscuits" created took to snoring on his back in the shady paradise. Now another of BB's attributes, apart from THE most placid of natures was the most amazing set of jet black balls. Quite remarkable on such a yellow dog! Bimbo, one utterly boring, hot, sultry, Malayan, summer afternoon spied these magnificent gonads and decided to play with them - gently. BB moaned his ecstacy - and wriggled in joy. The movement upset Bimbo and, as his nature was always geared to attack first, he sank his not inconsiderable teeth into BB's poor old balls.
BB took off at a pretty fair rate across the grass, leaping the enlarged monsoon drains that the Aussies had recently had built with the greatest of ease. The last I saw of Bimbo was his poor hairy little body bouncing along - boing, boing, boing - yelling loudly the while.
Serve the little barstid right!!!!