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What would you have done? Missed opportunity?

2_deck_dash

War Hero
Had a bit of a mad day yesterday. In between going to test shoot a nice matched pair of Purdeys and resigning from the HAC, my missus thought she had gone into labour. Anyway, it's a slow morning so I thought I'd come here and bore you ***** with the story.

The day was all going rather well, apart from a bit of traffic. It had been a beautiful morning and I'd been out in the countryside blasting clays and seagulls and eating bacon sarnies. After I'd finished shooting, I had a few hours to kill, so I decided to grab a Kentucky, go down to Armoury House and hand my kit in and sign off.

It's been a long time coming, I'm ditching London soon and the rest of the TA is quite frankly shite so transferring to another unit isn't an option for me. I don't do drill practice in portacabins, sorry. So with a bit of a lump in my throat, I handed over my MOD 90 and realised that it was the first time since the age of 16 that I didn't have a service number.

Whilst sorting through my bursting locker of junk, I pondered on the fact that the mob really does make you accumulate some crap. Save for my beret, Lowas and a Camelback which I traded some unit stickers for with some yanks, I didn't keep anything and handed over a massive box of junk to the store man.

As an armourer, I'm obviously involved with weapons on a daily basis and I'm reasonably well known within the unit for ******* about with old swords and stuff, occasionally I help the Pikemen and Musketeers out with a bit of maintenance in exchange for lunch and a bit of port. As I turned to leave, the store man presented me with a lovely leaving present; ''here you are Ravers, some old codger left this to the Regiment and no one wants it, don't suppose you fancy it? It's going in the skip otherwise.''

Being a bit of a hoarder and a pikey I was well chuffed as he gave me what appears to be a genuine 18th century Scottish basket hilt sword. It's in gash order mind, and some twat has spray painted the hilt in Halfords gold paint. Once it's been through the sand blaster and I've cleaned it up a bit, it'll look awesome above my fireplace. I've found another one here that appears to be the same, towards the bottom of the page: Sold Items - Antique Arms and Weapons from around the World

It was at this point that I received a frantic call from the wife: ''Babe, I think I'm going into labour, my waters just broke a little bit, can you come home?''

So I said my good byes, promised to stay in touch with the lads, thanked them for the sword and jumped in the car. As I battled through the London traffic to get home, eyeing up birds in their summer wear, I watched as a scene unfolded in front of me. A smartly dressed man was walking down the street on his iphone. In broad daylight, I then watched as another gentleman of a dusky persuasion calmly wandered up to the bloke on the phone, punched him square in the face, grabbed his mobile and walked off.

At this point, years of military training kicked in and I leapt out of the car. I grabbed one of the Purdeys that was sat on my back seat, loaded a pair of cartridges and picked up the sword in the other hand. I chased the assailant down City Road, shouting at the **** and firing a warning shot into the air. He obviously shat it and curled up in a ball on the floor, fearing for his life. I held him at sword point until the police arrived and after checking that the geezer in the suit was OK and receiving a pat on the back from plod, I jumped back in the car and continued home to my missus.

Now obviously that last paragraph is bollocks. It's what went through mind, but if I'm honest the real course of events went roughly like this:

After watching the bloke get twatted, I thought; ''ouch that had to hurt, poor ******.'' I then watched as the dusky gentleman made off with his phone, he looked big and he probably had a knife (he was black after all), so I sat in the safety of my car and did nothing. I considered stopping and helping the victim but there were a few other people around and I was on a red route and quite frankly, in a bit of a hurry.

It occurred to me afterwards that never again in my entire life (probably) will I be driving through a built up area with two guns, a box of 250 cartridges and a massive sword in my car and have the opportunity to use them on a criminal. Now obviously I'm a little fucked off that I missed my chance and I would have loved to unload a 12g into the thief's kneecap and fucked him up a bit with the sword.

In reality if I had taken this course of action, despite doing society a favour, I realise I'd probably be spending a very long time receiving free food and accom at her Majesties pleasure, that's if I hadn't first been shot by a police sniper.

Anyway I got home, pondered what could have been and tended to the missus. Turns out she wasn't giving birth and she'd just pissed herself a bit.
 
Nice dit.

just out of interest, you've done jack, done percy, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeese don't say you've caught the ghey and are going crab next? traffic warden is two steps above dontcha know.
 
Nice dit.

just out of interest, you've done jack, done percy, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeese don't say you've caught the ghey and are going crab next? traffic warden is two steps above dontcha know.

Nah that's me done and dusted now shippers. I'm thinking of taking up holocaust denial or if there isn't a decent society nearby, I'll look into home brewing.

In all seriousness, there is a mountain rescue unit in my new neck of the woods, might give them a shout once I'm settled.
 
I kept all my clutter. Having all this time at weekends has allowed me to sort it all out in my cellars into some semblance of order, brief my missus and little ones and run them through a few dry drills, you know - for when the apocalypse comes...
 
I kept all my clutter. Having all this time at weekends has allowed me to sort it all out in my cellars into some semblance of order, brief my missus and little ones and run them through a few dry drills, you know - for when the apocalypse comes...

I'm not sure how useful a mouldy sleeping bag, poncho and massive stash of faded tropical combats will be when the zombies invade. Having said that I should have kept the OP poo bags, they probably would have come in handy.
 
OP poo bags are good for storing onions in.

You could have flogged your junglies to the local airsoft team and some scrote going to a festival would have bought your **** maggot.

Tssk ,Jack, you can't cure stupid. :)

Now, if anyone has got a green lid loafing in their attic send it over and I'll wear it at the Anzac parade in a couple of weeks time, got two going spare and I'll get NZB to join me. :)
 
Almost a Crocodile Dundee moment .... when said "efnik fella" turns round and pulls out his knife ... pull out the pussers survival knife you keep secreted about your person and come up with "thats not a knife ... this is a .... mind an 18th C basket hilt sword would definitely have done it.

Which reminds me of a dit my mate told me a while back ... he was a civvy cruise director who has a rather nice 16th C cottage out in the sticks. Obviously the **** who broke in had been casing the joint and worked out my mate and his missis were practically always away at sea that it was empty however he obviously neglected to tip up early to look for lights and check the garage on this particular night as said mate was home when said scote broke in to thieve the family silver ... it being midnight my mate was in bed and on hearing a noise got up to investigate and grabbed a rather nasty looking indian sword (one of those 3ft long wavy things) and surprised the burgler who dropped everything and ran ... chased by a 6ft bloke with a pony tail stark bollock naked chasing him down the country lane waving a sword round his head and screaming like a dervish! Think the outcome was that the local feds had a good idea who it was and went around and felt his collar and caught him with a sack full of swag also reported as being nicked that night.

As for what I'd have done ... probably the same as 2DD and locked the car doors ... from the inside!
 
I started tarting up the sword today, it's coming along but still needs more work to get the last of the gold paint off. Nitromors and some gentle scrubbing with wire wool seem to be doing the trick.

Some clown has really massacred it. It was so caked in crap, it looked like a cheap theatrical prop when I picked it up.

I'll post phots when I'm near a computer, can't seem to work it out on the iphone.
 
That's the plan. People seem to randomly be giving me swords at the moment. Last year I was looking around a film armourer's gaff and I spied a properly shagged RN WO's sword with a black handle lying among a pile of junk.

I mentioned to the armourer that it would've been a really nice (and rare) sword once and he gave it to me!

Two more and I'll have one for each fireplace. :)
 

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