Fighting for the French Foreign Legion Read online

  With Aberdeen now being the European oil capital, the airport was expanding from a couple of Portakabins to being an international airport. A brand-new terminal was under construction and a police unit was being formed to work in it. I had been in the Police for just over seven years and leapt at the chance to combine my new hobby with my work. I had enjoyed my time as a detective but volunteered to go back into uniform to take on yet another challenge.

  Being back on regular shift work enabled me to continue flying so I was spending more and more time at the airport. This was not helping my home life which was by now in free fall to disaster. I was moonlighting with some of the air taxi companies which was against police regulations and I knew that I was pushing my luck. I was able to undertake short-flight aircraft transfers for the airlines, saving them using up expensive and valuable commercial pilot flight hours. I would fly before or after a shift so it was only a matter of time before I got stranded somewhere because of weather or a mechanical breakdown. I wasn’t doing it for the money, although it paid well – it was the adventure that drew me and perhaps the knowledge that I was bucking the system. My shift system gave me long weekends off and I was able to use them to move aircraft greater distances – Norway, the Channel Islands, Western Europe, my flights were getting further and the aircraft larger, but times were changing. I had never made the transition to jet aircraft and even the smaller companies were now buying the new range of small short-haul jets that had come on the market. There were fewer piston aircraft for me to fly.

  My wife thought that my ever-increasing absences were due to me having an affair and I did nothing to change this view. It was obvious that we could not continue like this. After a serious talk about our future, it was decided that a complete change of environment was our only chance if we were to save our marriage. My wife wanted to move back to our home area to be nearer her family, so I applied for a transfer from Aberdeen (now Grampian) to Strathclyde Police.

  We made the move in 1980 – new location, new challenges, new adventures – and I never flew an aircraft again. Things were fine for a while on the marital front and I had lots to occupy me with settling into a new home and job. After a brief period in uniform on the west side of Glasgow, I was transferred to Police HQ where I was attached to the press public relations department and the photographic unit.

  The force was organizing an international police tattoo, with participants coming from all over the world. My old marketing skills were put to use and I enjoyed being part of the production team. The event was a great success and we filled the Kelvinhall Arena every night for a week; the final performance was televised and everyone was happy.

  With this brief bit of excitement over I quickly became bored. Home life had not improved and my wife and I had grown apart. Who was to blame? Probably me. I know that one always thinks that it is the fault of the other person but I must accept honestly that I was the main problem. I have this need to be always finding new challenges – I can’t sit at home and do nothing. I must have made life miserable for my wife.

  Eventually I started drinking although I don’t remember how it started. I had not been teetotal, but very rarely drank and never went into a bar on my own. This of course only made things worse. I had always been fit, played football, squash and golf, swam and regularly went running. Sporting facilities within the Police were excellent and we were encouraged to use them. Drinking was just not me.

  In the end, things came to a head at home and I decided to leave. It had been a mistake to think that our problems could be solved by simply moving to another area, on top of which I was not happy at work. Aberdeen City Police was a great force, with an excellent officer structure and good honest policing methods. Perhaps it was the pure size of Strathclyde, for there are many very good, efficient, honest officers within its ranks, but there were some, albeit a minority, who were not. The Police, like every other walk of life, are only human. In a workforce that runs into thousands there is bound to be a small percentage who are incompetent or downright dishonest. The combination of my own personal problems and some of the people I was working with made me decide to resign. It was time to move on to another adventure.

  I have never regretted my years as a police officer, they were great, and I learned so much about life, including the realization that there are few of us mortals who do not experience major problems at some time in our lives. Being a police officer teaches one to deal with other people’s problems in a sympathetic way. Ninety per cent of a police officer’s time is spent helping others – locking up offenders occupies only a small part of the working day. It is when officers don’t have time to spend on the first part that police public relations break down and the crime rate soars. I will describe later how this early grounding helped me deal with more dramatic circumstances.

  For the next eighteen months I was at an all-time low. I was never out of work, but everything was an anti-climax after the previous ten years. It was not that the work I was doing was uninteresting, far from it. I was managing and marketing a new Scottish quality timeshare holiday complex, but my personal life was a mess. I had stopped drinking and I was getting back my old level of fitness, but I needed more than this, so I moved on again in search of I knew not what.

  It was during this period that my father died suddenly in hospital in circumstances that led to a public enquiry. It was a distressing time for all the family, in particular my mother who, like many of her generation, had never had to deal with the problems of daily life, such as paying the bills. She had not spent one day on her own in her whole life and took her anger and frustrations out on the only person who was there to help her. ‘This is all your fault’, ‘If it wasn’t for you doing this or that’ – on and on it went.

  I was now thirty-seven and had lost all belief in myself. I was at rock bottom. It is amazing how you can go from success to failure in such a short time. I couldn’t hold a job down and had become homeless. I needed a roof over my head so I set out to walk from Edinburgh, where I found myself, to Prestwick where my mother lived. I got a couple of lifts but walked most of the way. It seemed hard at the time but it was nothing to the walking I would do over the following eleven years. I eventually got to my mother’s house and thankfully she said that I could stay until I got myself sorted out. At least I was able to paint and sold enough of my work to put a few pounds in my pocket. But my mother was finding it hard to adapt to her loss and my presence was not making it any easier for her. Relations were strained, to say the least, and I became depressed, seeing no end to my present circumstances.

  At the beginning of June 1983, I decided that I had had enough. I went out and bought a litre bottle of whisky and walked to the beach which stretches for over 5 miles from Prestwick to Troon. It has high sand dunes and is normally deserted except for a few people walking their dogs along the shoreline.

  There was plenty of driftwood and I set about gathering large pieces to make a shelter in the dunes, which I then covered with grass and sand. It was totally hidden from the waterline and would only be discovered by someone who came into the gully I had chosen. I was very focused about what I was about to do and can remember every moment clearly to this day. I went into my little hide at about 5.00 pm and drank the whole bottle of whisky in about fifteen minutes. At first it was hard to swallow but as the effect of the whisky set in it became easier and soon the bottle was empty. I could see out to sea and watched a magnificent sunset over the Isle of Arran before I must have passed out.

  When I came round it was just after 2.00 pm on the Saturday. I had been out for over forty hours. It had been Thursday afternoon when I had come down to the beach and what brought me round was the constant roar of aircraft. It was the afternoon of the Scottish Air Show at Prestwick Airport and the end of the runway was less than half a mile away, in a direct line with my place of concealment.

  At first I could not remember what had happened or where I was, but then I was violently sick. This continued for some time
until I was dry retching. I had the hangover of all time and I think I fell asleep again for a couple of hours. I was eventually tempted out of my hide by the sound of aircraft performing aerobatics above my head and couldn’t resist having a look. It was a warm June afternoon and when I emerged I was surprised to find a group of people standing less than 10 feet away at the top of the dunes. I must have looked a mess – I had two days’ growth of beard and felt like a tramp. They looked at me with disgust, but no one asked me if was all right.

  I stood and watched the displays for a while and soon warmed up in the afternoon sun. Eventually I made my way back to the house where, despite my state, my mother said nothing and went into the kitchen. She didn’t ask me where I had been or if I was all right. All she said was, ‘I hope the neighbours didn’t see you.’

  That made my mind up to go. I didn’t know where but it was like all those years ago when I was seventeen. I had gone then and succeeded – I could do it again.

  I had saved a bit of money, but would have to be careful. I went to my room, had a shower and a shave, packed a bag with the bare essentials, picked up my passport and went back through to the living room. I told my mother I was leaving but all she said was, ‘Make sure you leave your key,’ before turning back to the kitchen. I walked out of the door without looking back.

  I still had no idea where I was going or what I was going to do. As it was summer, I thought I might go down to the South of France and try my hand selling my paintings direct to the public.

  There was a direct bus service from Ayr, via Kilmarnock, to Dover and I was able to join the bus at Prestwick. It was a long overnight ride but I slept most of the way and felt refreshed by the time I caught the ferry to Calais. I was ready for my new adventure.

  I had never been to France before and didn’t speak a word of French. Like most Brits I assumed that everyone else spoke English - how arrogant we are!

  My next stop was Paris and I fell in love with it immediately. London may be a great city, and there are many impressive buildings and places of interest to visit, but nothing prepares you for the beauty of Paris. I decided to spend some time doing the tourist bit and it was easy to find a cheap, clean hotel right in the heart of the city. Two days later I found myself in an Irish pub and got speaking to a couple of English-speaking lads. One was Swiss and the other Australian. Both were tanned and well built, and told me that they were on leave from the French Foreign Legion, having spent the past two years in French Guyana in South America. They were just starting a month’s leave before heading back to the Legion HQ at Aubagne in the South of France, where they would be posted to a new regiment. They did not glamorize the life but from what they told me they obviously enjoyed what they did. I realized that at thirty-eight I was probably too old but they said that the age limit was forty and they had sparked that old sense of adventure in me.

  When I eventually got to bed in the early hours of the morning, I couldn’t sleep. My mind was racing and I knew that my mind was made up – nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  I rose early, had breakfast and set off on the next part of my life. I had no idea what was in store for me, but it couldn’t be worse than trying to commit suicide on a beach.

  CHAPTER 3

  Into the Unknown

  There was a telephone number on the recruitment poster and I was encouraged by the fact that the poster was in English. What I didn’t know was that the posters were printed in the language most commonly used by persons arriving at a particular railway station. When I phoned the number, someone spoke to me in what passed for English and gave me directions to the recruitment centre for Paris at Fort du Nogent on the eastern outskirts of Paris. I found my way there and was soon standing outside the massive doors of an ancient fort dating back to Napoleonic times. The fort itself was awesome and just plucking up the courage to ring the doorbell is, in itself, the first obstacle to joining the Legion. I am sure that quite a few get cold feet at that point and turn away.

  A small wicket gate set into the huge doors swung open in response to my ring although I had not heard the bell. The sentry was dressed in green combat fatigues but was wearing the famous white kepi that is associated with the Legion. I was shown into the guardroom and told to sit on a wooden bench. Eventually someone who I thought was a sergeant came out and asked what I wanted. I explained why I was there, thinking that I was special – little did I know that he heard this sort of thing dozens of times a day. I was to find out later that if he didn’t like a person for any reason they would be shown the door and that would be that. He noted my name and asked if I had any proof of identity. I handed him my passport and I saw his eyes stop at my date of birth. He looked down at me, shrugged his shoulders and said that I was a bit old for this sort of thing. Instead of showing me the door, he shouted for one of the guards to escort me to another area of the fort.

  We walked across the fort to another building before being shown into an other room where six other lads, all much younger than me, were seated on benches, stripped to their underwear. None of them said anything, and I was instructed in a mixture of French and sign language to get my clothes off and take a seat.

  After about half an hour of waiting in what was not a warm room, a medic called us into an examination room one by one. A doctor performed a basic medical examination, checking the curvature of the spine, heart, lungs, teeth, ears and eyesight. He spoke no English and I was aware of a second person observing my attitude and ability to work out what I was being asked to do. The whole thing took less than ten minutes and I found myself back in the waiting room still in my underwear. Another lad had arrived and was immediately sent in to be examined. When the new arrival came back out, four of our group were told to get back into their clothes and were taken away. We never saw them again.

  No words had been exchanged between us and I had no idea what nationality any of the others were. Those of us remaining, including myself, were taken into another room and issued with a plain green tracksuit, a pair of blue trainers and a basic uniform, which consisted of a pair of black shoes, black socks, khaki shirt, green tie and beret, and a brown jacket and trousers, a bit like my old police uniform. We were also given clean underwear which we had to put on. There were no badges or insignia of any kind on either the uniform or the beret.

  Having been thus kitted out, we were told to put on the tracksuit, socks and trainers. Everything else, including our own clothes, was put in a kitbag. All our private documents, wallets and money were take from us, sealed in envelopes and taken away. It felt like we were going to prison.

  Next we were taken to a large barrack room where we were allocated a bunk bed and a locker to stow the kitbags in. We were also given a basic toilet kit of soap, razor, toothpaste and toothbrush. There were twenty-eight others already in the room, which I estimated could sleep up to fifty – basic accommodation but very clean.

  We were left to make our own introductions amongst ourselves. Some of the lads had already been there for almost a week and had formed small groups according to nationality or ability to communicate in a common language. There were several German speakers, one Swede who spoke good English, a couple of black Africans who kept to themselves, some French speakers and a group comprising a Canadian, a New Zealander, a Pole, a fellow Scot and two lads from England. The one thing that was obvious was that I was considerably older than any of them.

  At about six in the evening we were taken to a mess room and fed. The food was basic but nutritious and we were given a glass of red wine with the meal. The wine, it was pointed out, came from the Legion’s own vineyards at Puyloubier in the South of France.

  After the meal we were led to the kitchens and put to work cleaning the dishes. You get nothing for nothing in the Legion and as we were to find out, there are no civilian staff in it. Everything from cooking to general maintenance is done by the legionnaires themselves. We finished our chores at about 8.00 pm and were taken back to our barrack room. There then followed a two-hour
film about the Legion of yesteryear and today. Being someone who knew nothing about the Legion – and I suspected that I was not the only one – I found it fascinating. We still didn’t have a clue as to what was going to happen next. Were we now in the Legion? Where and what kind of instruction were we going to get? I had no idea.

  After this introduction it was explained that we would be travelling by train to Aubagne the following morning. We learned that the headquarters of the Legion were just outside Marseille and that it would be there that we would undergo the selection process. Today had just been the first step in the process; the real thing was still to come.

  We would travel in the uniforms we had been issued with and were warned that although we would be travelling on public transport, we were not to talk to anyone on the journey. To do so would mean being shown the door when we got to our destination.

  It became obvious to me that many of my new companions were trying to outdo each other in their claims about what they had done before. Everything from previous military experience to physical ability was bragged about, most of which could be taken with a pinch of salt. Gaining entry was going to be very competitive and there was a dog-eat-dog atmosphere creeping in even at this early stage. I had a feeling that this was quite the opposite of what the Legion was all about.

  After an early breakfast and the mandatory dishwashing, we set off by coach for the station. We must have looked a strange bunch as we were led onto the train – more like a bunch of criminals than elite soldiers, and perhaps a few of us were, if the truth be known.