WARTIME MEMORIES OF LIBYA
16th August 2011

Reg and friends at HMS Grebe, the Royal Navy designation for the prewar Alexandria airport, with a 2lb anti-tank gun

We recently received another letter from Mr Reg Mumford about his time in 7th Battalion during the North Africa campaign. Along with the anecdote below he included several photographs which show him and his friends in their free time as they fought through the campaign.

 Reg recalls:

"Very occasionally we would meet up with Libyans and some of the lads were always willing to try and do a bit of business with them. One lad used to go to the Cooks and scrounge all the used tea leaves, dry them in the sun and then trade them for a few eggs. The same lad found a 7lb bag of salt, sprinkled a small amount of sugar on the top, told the natives it was sugar and after dipping their fingers in to check, they gave him a couple of chickens. Fortunately we moved on before they found out."

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