Hateland

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  Roy said, 'Can I have your autograph, mate?'

  Sid remained silent, then took a huge slurp of lager and spat it into Roy's face, adding, 'Fuck off, tosser.'

  Roy just stood there, dripping, with his mouth open. I started laughing and couldn't stop. Sid glared at Roy for a few seconds more, as if looking at a piece of shit he'd just trodden on, then shook his head and downed the rest of his pint before turning back to the bar to order another beer. To avoid another drenching, Roy walked off swiftly before it arrived. I followed, still laughing.

  I started touring the country with a punk band formed by ex-pupils of my school. I travelled in their van and acted as doorman at their gigs in pubs and clubs. Politically, punk could have gone either way. It wasn't instinctively left-wing, although the reds later co-opted it, signing it up for 'Rock Against Racism' and the like. The original punk impulse was very individualistic and anti-social. Many of the early punks wore swastikas to shock. The Sex Pistols themselves released a song called 'Belsen was a Gas' about the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, where thousands of mostly Jewish inmates were murdered. A mate of mine called Pete O'Shea formed a punk band with far-right leanings called Stench. They had one single out called 'Raspberry Cripple', which looked inhumanely at the disabled, and another called 'Nonces', which advocated the torture and murder of sex offenders.

  By the age of 18, I'd had 13 separate court appearances in which I'd been convicted of more than 20 offences. I'd received almost every one of the legal system's alternatives to incarceration. By the end of 1978, I remained under a supervision order for street robbery, I was carrying out 240 hours' community service for going equipped for theft and I was on bail for assault, theft, threatening behaviour and possessing an offensive weapon.

  I should have left it at that, really. But I became part of a criminal conspiracy to steal a blue velvet jacket with huge lapels like those worn by one of my pre-punk pop idols Marc Bolan, lead singer of the group T-Rex. Marc had died two weeks before his 30th birthday in September 1977 when his Mini left the road and smashed into a tree. I was saddened by his death and didn't approve of the tasteless joke that soon did the rounds (Q: What was Marc Bolan's last hit? A: A tree). I think I intended wearing the blue velvet jacket in tribute to my fallen hero. Bad taste isn't a criminal offence. Theft is. Store detectives caught me with the shoplifted jacket in my hand. A prison sentence now seemed inevitable - unless I could think of a dodge.

  And that's how I ended up in the army. I've written about this period in detail in my book Soldier of the Queen (2000). I signed up at a recruitment office in Wolverhampton town centre, although I had no intention of ever joining the ranks. My plan had been to wave my recruitment papers at the fearsome stipendiary magistrate who'd already said he intended imposing a custodial sentence. I hoped he'd let me off with a suspended sentence. Then I'd 'resign' from the army. At my hearing, the magistrate looked at my army papers suspiciously. I said I'd always wanted to become a soldier. He said, 'You might just be saying that.'

  He told me he intended giving me a total of six months' imprisonment, but was prepared to defer sentencing for a little while. If I wasn't in the army on the day he set aside, then I'd be sent to jail. However, if I was a soldier by that date, he'd suspend the sentence for two years.

  The army seemed the least unsatisfactory alternative, although my friends laughed hysterically at the idea of me as a soldier. They didn't think I'd last five minutes in an environment where I had to take orders. The British Army was the first extreme right-wing organisation I ever joined. Patriotism, or rather a narrow, arrogant, Rule-Britannia, God-save-the-Queen jingoism, was rammed down our throats at every opportunity. And, like the other far-right groups I later encountered, the forces of the Crown didn't seem to care too much about the presence of criminals in the ranks.

  I'd already told the recruitment sergeant I had no criminal record, so at first I feared the promised stringent background checks would unmask me. I needn't have worried. During my three years in the army, I came across many people - at least 20 - with undisclosed criminal records, often involving crimes of violence. And twice during my service, the army sent an officer to speak up for me when I appeared in court for new offences.

  The initial selection process took place at St George's Barracks in Sutton Coldfield. I didn't have much time for most of the other recruits. Many of them seemed desperately keen to make the army their life. For the first time I came across the term 'army barmy', used to describe people who adore everything to do with soldiering.

  I got on well with only one recruit. Called Alan, he came from Rhodesia. He was bright and amusing and had done some strange things in his life. He hated blacks, especially black Rhodesians, and followed intently the progress of the war in his homeland between the whites and the black 'commie bastard terrorists', as he called them. He couldn't understand why white people in England seemed to treat blacks - he called them 'kaffirs' - as equals. I told him we didn't.

  He said that when he'd first arrived in England he'd taken the underground from Heathrow Airport into central London. Further down the line, a black man had got on and sat in the same carriage. Alan couldn't believe the man's cheek. He thought blacks were forbidden to travel in the same compartments as whites - as was the case in his own country. He told the man to get out. Not surprisingly, he refused. So Alan pulled the communication cord. When the guard arrived, Alan told him to remove 'the kaffir' immediately. The guard threatened to call the police.

  Alan's father was Scottish, so he had no problem being accepted into the British Army. He intended getting an up-to-date military training before returning home to bayonet some commie kaffirs.

  At that time, I hadn't grasped the meaning of regiments. I just thought we were all in the army and that was that. Alan explained the regimental system and told me he wanted to join his father's Scottish regiment. He wanted me to go with him, but I said, 'I ain't going in no fucking jock regiment.'

  So he suggested - because of my Irish background - that I join an Irish one. He added, 'Then you can be a war-dodger as well.' I didn't know what he meant. He explained that the army had a policy of not sending so-called 'Irish' regiments to serve in Northern Ireland.

  My mind had been so focused on avoiding prison that until that point I hadn't properly considered the most unpleasant implication of joining the army, namely, that I might have to serve in the British-occupied section of Ulster. War-dodging struck me as an excellent idea.

  The results of my aptitude tests had indicated I'd make a good tank gunner. I asked Alan if he knew of an Irish tank regiment. He said, 'Yes, the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards.' I said, 'They'll do.'

  I was sent to start my seven weeks of basic training with the Royal Armoured Corps in the Yorkshire garrison town of Catterick. A childhood of verbal and physical abuse had prepared me well for the training regime. Indeed, some days I used to feel my childhood was being repeated as pantomime farce. Unlike most of my fellow recruits, I found a lot of the extreme behaviour extremely funny. None of the instructors ever talked normally. They barked, shouted or screamed every instruction and, perhaps through fear you hadn't heard them, would often supplement their words with punches, slaps or kicks.

  The training left me physically exhausted all the time. One of the instructors' favourite games - usually played at 3 a.m. - was called 'changing parades'. They'd order us to change into a bizarre combination of clothing which had to be worn in the stipulated order. Then they'd shout 'Go! Go! Go!' and we'd have to run back upstairs to change, before running back down as fast as we could. The first three downstairs would be allowed back to bed. The others had to change into another combination, invariably involving a gas mask.

  One recruit lived in fear of 'changing parades', because he always ended up last in bed. He came from south London. Slightly built with short dark hair parted at the side, he sometimes wore glasses. He didn't mix well and rarely spoke, preferring to spend his time sitting alone reading war
comics or books about Hitler's elite troops, the Waffen SS. We nicknamed him Rommel. He knew everything you might possibly want to know about Waffen SS panzer divisions, especially their soldiers' clothing and weaponry. He wanted to join the Royal Tank Regiment because their tank crews wore black overalls like his SS panzer heroes. Members of other tank regiments wore green.

  He'd also listen to tapes of the 'Speak German in a Fortnight' variety. We used to take the mickey out of him and sometimes he'd play up to us, goose-stepping up and down the room with his right arm outstretched in a Nazi salute. However, though clearly army barmy, his enthusiasm didn't translate into efficiency, which was why he feared 'changing parades'.

  One night as we frantically changed, he said, 'Fuck. I'm going to be last again.' I suggested he jump out the window to get downstairs quickly. As we were at least 20 feet up on the third floor, I thought he'd take my suggestion as the joke I'd meant it to be. But in his desperation, it must have seemed like a good idea, because the next second he was clambering out the window.

  The image that remains in my mind is of him looking back at me, eyes flickering madly, as he launched himself into the air. I heard a crunch and a piercing 'Aaaaarrrggghhh!' and I ran to look out. Rommel lay writhing on the ground. Instructors stood over him shouting, 'What are you doing, you silly cunt?' Miraculously, he didn't break any bones, although he could hardly walk. They made him crawl back upstairs to continue the game.

  Most recruits, especially those from normal loving backgrounds, couldn't overcome the shock of army life. They'd crack under the bombardment of abuse. At night, people would be talking about running away - or even suicide. Around two-thirds of the recruits in my intake didn't finish the course. It seemed to me that the whole selection process was designed to weed out normal people. Only the disturbed or desperate survived.

  On 23 April 1979, about 12 weeks into my army career, rioting broke out in Southall, an area of west London containing many Asians. Blair Peach, a 33-year-old white teacher from New Zealand, was killed by a blow to the head as police dispersed thousands of demonstrators protesting against a National Front rally. The talk at the camp was of the National Front, 'spades', 'wogs' and 'fucking foreigners'. It seemed to me that the army was overflowing with potential and actual Nazis. At times, I thought I'd joined the National Front's armed wing.

  Ten days later, the election of a Conservative government led by Mrs Thatcher was greeted all round with scenes of jubilation not seen since the Relief of Mafeking. There was, however, widespread disappointment at the poor showing of the National Front.

  One day, my Rhodesian friend Alan suddenly started crying. I knew something catastrophic must have happened for him to break down in such a way. I asked him what was wrong. He said the 'kaffirs' had taken over Rhodesia and wanted to rename it Zimbabwe. His family owned a big farm, which he feared the blacks would seize.

  The only good news in his life was that he'd got on so well in basic training the army wanted to make him an officer. They felt he had the qualities to become a leader of men. He ended up being sent to the officer-training school at Sandhurst.

  Eventually, the training ended and I was posted to my regiment in Germany, where I spent the next two years. Life in Germany was a lot more relaxed, though I kept running up against petty rules. The army thrived on total bullshit. It was smeared on everything.

  My time in Germany was spent largely on 'exercises' involving thousands of men and machines causing havoc to the locals. For six weeks each year, we went to the tank-firing ranges at Hohne in northern Germany, just down the road from the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp mentioned in the Sex Pistols' song.

  The NAAFI canteen, which existed to poison and demoralise soldiers, was based in a grand, grey stone building which looked like a Roman palace and was rumoured to be the former headquarters for the SS who'd run the nearby death camp. Eagles clasping Nazi swastikas in their claws had been carved into the stone on either side of the entrance porch.

  I visited Belsen one day It's situated in beautiful woodland, but I couldn't hear any birds singing. Mounds of earth with small plaques marked the graves of thousands. The museum outside the main gate contained photographs, and some possessions, of some of those who'd perished there. The experience troubled and horrified me in a way I hadn't expected.

  Social life in Germany mirrored the social life I'd led prior to enlistment - a cocktail of drinking and fighting. The only German word most soldiers learnt was 'Bier'. The squaddies' world revolved around beer. I made a few good friends, one of whom was called Lofty. He was an even more unlikely recruit than me. Extremely laid-back, he'd smoke dope and strum a guitar in his room, the walls of which were covered in Campaign for Nuclear

  Disarmament and anti-war posters, including the one which said, 'Join the army, get a trade, travel to exotic locations, meet interesting people - and kill them.'

  He worked as a clerk in the HQ offices, because he didn't like guns. The real soldiers hated him. It must have been one of them who reported his dope-smoking to the Military Police, who raided his room looking for evidence. Fortunately, he'd smoked everything the night before. The redcaps had to be content with confiscating some of his revolutionary posters, including one featuring the Cuban guerrilla leader, Che Guevara, and another advertising the Paul McCartney record 'Give Ireland Back to the Irish'.

  No one knew what to make of him. When you asked him why he'd joined the army, he'd say, 'It's something I ask myself every day.' Like a lot of squaddies, he was probably escaping something worse.

  On 2 April 1980, rioting took place in the St Paul's district of Bristol following a police raid on a black-run cafe where alcohol was being sold illegally. Squaddies taunted the two mixed-race soldiers in our regiment with the words, 'Oi! Have you paid for that?' every time they returned from the bar with drinks.

  The news that we were being posted to Northern Ireland landed like a mortar among us. We'd heard the army intended changing its policy of not posting Irish regiments there, but we'd assumed an infantry unit would have the privilege of being the first to be sent. We were tank soldiers, after all.

  The atmosphere of shock and gloom that followed this news made me realise the derogatory nickname 'war-dodgers' had been neither unkind nor inaccurate for many in 'the Skins' (as we were known). A lot of people had genuinely joined in the belief they'd never have to serve in Northern Ireland.

  Our four-and-a half-month tour of duty would start on 10 April 1981. What was more, we'd be going to the historical recruitment base of our regiment - Enniskillen in County Fermanagh. The idea of returning to patrol their own streets seemed to appeal greatly to the regiment's staunch Loyalists. Some of them made plain they had scores to settle with the Catholic population. I imagined how I - or indeed the locals - might react if I were sent back to patrol Codsall with a rifle. All the same, I had to wonder why - if they were really so keen to bash republicans - they'd joined a regiment they'd thought would never have to serve in their beloved land of Orange.

  Because of my Irish-Catholic background, I was told I didn't have to go if I didn't want to. I said I wanted to, but I didn't explain why. My desire had nothing to do with going to fight for Queen and country; I just wanted to be with my friends. My loyalty was to them - and I had no intention of being the one waving at the gate as they left. To me, it was like they were going out for a fight in the car park and I was going to join them.

  On the day we arrived in Ireland, riots broke out in Brixton, south London. The violence lasted two days before order was restored. Lord Scarman later wrote a report into the disturbances. The feeling in the regiment was that we should have been on the streets of Brixton rolling over Rastafarians in our Chieftain tanks, rather than patrolling Northern Ireland on foot.

  We arrived in Fermanagh a month after the local MP, the IRA prisoner Bobby Sands, started his hunger strike for political status. Sands, and nine other republican prisoners, starved themselves to death during our tour of duty. Pictures of Sa
nds festooned our camp. Juxtaposed mockingly beside them were adverts for slimming products and headlines from articles celebrating the achievements of Weight Watchers ('I lost four stone in three months'). The most popular headline was 'Slimmer of the Year'. There was also a Hunger Strike Sweepstake: on a board in the operations room were listed the names of all republicans on hunger strike. Soldiers would have to guess the number of days a particular hunger striker would take to die. Each guess cost one pound and the soldier who guessed correctly would get to keep the pot.

  We hadn't been properly trained or prepared for Northern Ireland. As tank soldiers, the small arms we'd trained with were sub-machine guns, not the standard infantryman's Self-Loading Rifle (SLR). A week of special training to sharpen up our urban warfare skills had left our instructors almost crying with despair. But what could they expect? We were tankies, not nasty little 'grunts' (the name we used for infantrymen, who had to grunt round the countryside with huge packs on their backs while being showered with mud from the tracks of our regiment's tanks).

  I went for a week of extra training to Hollywood barracks outside Belfast, where I found myself in a group of about 20 soldiers from different regiments. On the first day, we sat in a room containing a large television. A major walked in, marched to the front and said, 'If you're going to die, we might as well tell you why.'

  He then played a video which condensed Ireland's history into 30 minutes. When the video finished, he began talking to us in a tone of matter-of-fact cynicism. He opened his talk by saying that the film had probably left us more confused than enlightened, but that this didn't really matter. The essential fact, he said, was that as British soldiers we were little more than piggies-in-the-middle in a baffling tribal conflict, the intricacies of which need not concern us too greatly. All we really needed to bear in mind as we went about our duties were the simple equations, 'Catholic = IRA = bad' and 'Protestant = British = good'. He said he didn't mean to give offence to any Catholics in the group, if there were any, as British Catholics were obviously different from Irish Catholics. He said he knew also he was being deeply unfair to the many Irish Catholics who didn't support the IRA. However, his purpose was merely to identify the tribal grouping from which the threat to our lives was most likely to come, and the simple fact of the matter was that we didn't need to be as wary of Protestants.