When I were a lad in Gibraltar….

When I were but a lad in Gibraltar the RAF had a squadron of Shackleton bombers. Quite big beasts that resembled the old Lancaster bombers of WWII and which had a deep throaty roar as they flew over the rock out to sea.
Down at Europa Point alongside the lighthouse there was a kind of ledge and from time to time the military, probably the Royal Artillery, would set up a line of anti-aircraft guns, six of seven of them, probably a whole battery of guns although I’m not sure how may guns are in a battery. We would watch them, had a grandstand view only a few yards from the ledge. They would practice drills for hours, loading, unloading, traversing, and cleaning gun barrels and running around with boxes of ammunition. In the afternoon one of the Shackleton bombers would appear far out to sea, flying high, North to South and towing behind it, on an enormously long rope, an orange target. And now the guns would open fire and there was a great cacophony of noise with men in tin hats running about with shells, loading the firing guns, more tin hats, moulded to the gun seats spinning little brass wheels and tracking the target,t and more tin hats with binoculars watching the target and shouting instructions. The poor orange target didn’t stand a chance and there was acrid smoke from the guns and it was really really exciting. Afterwards would come a NAAFI tea van, or maybe it was the WRVS and serve the soldiers large mugs of tea and huge white sandwiches, “wads” they called them and the soldiers would chat to us and give us a sip of tea