General Headquarters Branch - Royal Army Ordnance Corps - M.E.L.F. 20 - (Fayid, Egypt)
March, 1950
My father is 7th from the left, back row.
All the people in the photo are clerks, accountants, book-keepers and administrative staff. The ones not in uniform are the 'Sixpenny Settlers', who were civilian employees who, because they weren't actually resident in England, only paid six pence on the pound in Income Tax (about two and a half percent). The married ones lived in WOs and Sgts married quarters.
For some reason the female secretaries were not included in the photo.
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Cub Scouts of the
1st Great Bitter Lake Pack
2nd Cairo Troop (Fayid)
Taken on the roof of the Grand Hotel, Cairo
All the Cub Scouts were eight and nine years old,
and went to the same school.
I can only remember the names of Christopher Howland
I am standing third from left, next to a cub wearing his cap. I also remember the name of Brian Hamilton, and Patrick (?) but I'm not sure where they are in the photo. October, 2007 | 
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JOHN NICOL was the Cubmaster of our local (and only) Cub Scout pack. I vaguely remember that his family came from Bournemouth.
He was very well liked and respected by both cubs and their parents, and was a great influence on me. He encouraged me to read 'Rikki-Tikki-Tavi' by Jeremy Pinkney, which I found a bit hard going at the age of eight. For one thing, I didn't know what a mongoose was. He was an avid Rudyard Kipling fan, and encouraged me to read 'The Jungle Book'. I think he believed that the lessons in these books were good examples of the moral standards on which to base one's life. In 1950 he was taken very ill with lung cancer, which he readily admitted was a result of his 5-pack-a-day Senior Service habit. His fingers were always very badly stained with nicotine from the cigarettes. My parents took me to see him in a R.A.M.C. tent-hospital at Moasca, where he wrote a quotation from Jungle Book in my collection of autographs, which I still have. I have a distinct memory of him on the hospital bed, leaning on one elbow, writing it with his favorite fountain-pen which started to dry up. Despite my father's protests John insisted on saying 'Goodbye' as if forever. We heard later that he had died within a few weeks. I think he was 34. July 2007 | 
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If you have any stories or memories you'd like to share I would very much like to hear from you, especially if you were like me, an Army Brat whose father was serving in Egypt after World War II.
You can e-mail me
here