At Dover Barry reached the rank of JLCpl (Junior Lance Corporal).
In the 18 months spent at Dover he covered basic military training including:
First Aid, Signals, Drill, Map reading, Weapon handling, Field Craft, & Living in the field.
Sports included:
Swimming, Water polo, Gymnastics & Trampolining.
Military Enginering (Cbt Eng B3) included:
Basic skills, Demolition's, Minewarfare, Watermanship, Water supply, Bailey bridge, Medium girder bridge (MGB), Field defences, Roads and airfields.
Adult Recruit Cbt Engr Class 2
Sapper/LCpl Section Cbt Engr
I arrived in Germany on 22 Sept 1974 and just over a month later was on my way to Northern Ireland on an Op Descant (Engineer tour). I was in 7 Troop and we were detached to Antrim in support of 33 Ind Field Sqn who were permanitaly based on the bank of Lough Neagh.
On the 03 Jan 1975, I was sent on my Class 3 Sheetmetal Workers course at Brompton Barracks in Chatham, Kent for 3 months, leaving my troop to complete the 4 month tour in Antrim.
Early 1976 I attended the Regimental Cadre and promoted to L/Cpl.
The remaining highlights of my time with the Sqn was a 'Medicine Man' exercise at Batus in Canada Jun - Aug 1976 which was followed by an Adventure Training exercise in the Rockys where I was pulled down into a whirlpool on the 'Great North Saskatchewan' river whilst canoeing. Needless to say I survived.
This was followed in Oct 1976 by another tour in Northen Ireland where we were based at Ballykelly but my section was sent to Sion Mills early in 1977 to replace some cover from view screens. This lead to the tragic death of Dave Thompson with a blast wall falling on him and was killed instantly.
