A FOSTERS OR AN ABBOTTS

Neil Gillies

I was serving with 6th Battery, 2/3rd Field Regiment and at our first position in Greece we were issued with two bottles of beer. The signals sergeant did the issuing but had some bottles left over as they couldn’t be sent to observation posts etc.

When we were forced to withdraw, some infantry men stopped and gave covering fire while our guns were timbered up, then hopped onto our trucks. A couple got into a signals van. One of them said, ‘How’d a beer go now?’ and nearly fell out of the van when a sig produced two bottles and said, ‘Which one do you want, a Fosters or an Abbotts?’