I well remember Captain Tubbs. First came into contact With him in Tripoli. When I transferred into HQ troop He became a more dominant presence. Hyper active you tried always to steer clear of him. I recall one of his many annoying habits of when we had been halted for a time awaiting further instructions he would get us digging holes in the sand then refill. Repeat until boredom was overcome. On one exercise when the HMS Bulwark was on her way to Aden with a Royal Marine contingent the Fleet Admiral proposed a desert exercise for the marines. They were flown in by chopper. We had been tasked with comms ( myself, Cpl Bradbury, Tpr Mackenzie ). As was usual we set up our canopy for sleeping alongside our Saracen. Mr Tubbs in his liaison role had the admiral visit our set up. As you do in these cases the admiral expressed a desire to have a go at driving our Ferret. Mr Tubbs always eager to please was only too happy to oblige and guided the admiral through the intricacies of pre-select gears and funny powered steering. with Mr Tubbs giving dubious signals the admiral promptly reversed over our tentage wrecking everything inside. Mr Tubbs to admiral, "whoops". One last memory. Joint troop meet up in desert. After orders given troops scatter to differing locations. Me with Sgt Ted Morris just about to head off when Mr Tubbs arrived at our Saracen. "map please, Sgt Morris. I left mine behind. No problem for you just follow the track". Well we followed the track until it disappeared. Carried on in the general direction of home. Over the dunes into the valleys. It was at this point that one of our pistons gave up the ghost and we started belching smoke and the odd flame. Ted decided to call it a day and we reported our predicament. Problem. No map to identify location. Long story short it took two days to locate us. Do I remember Mr Vivian Jasper Tubbs. You bet. Great officer. Vale, Jasper.
