…... for Army sports events. But it was a real sad day for Ted Evans when the C.O. took to horse riding. There was nowhere on the Camp to house the bally horse except the training hut - and so the horse got the hut. Ted Evans had scrounged for miles to get the material – spent all his spare evenings in building it - and lo, he had done it for the C.O.’s horse. Assailed by Evans I had to make an effort. With trepidation I approached the C.O., but the result was the horse had got to stay - there was nowhere
else for it. Ted Evans was mad; the runners were up in arms - and I was unwise enough to make a second attempt. I bearded the C.O. in his office one evening. I said, “About your horse, sir.” He wheeled on me very sharply saying, “What about my horse.” I made a miserable effort, failed, beat a hasty retreat from the office and the C.O.'s horse won again.
THE CONCERT PARTY
Our Squadron
Concert Party was good fun and provided entertainment not only for our own Squadron but also at Casualty Clearing Stations and neighbouring Camps. Squadron Commander Draper was the life and soul of the Concert Party and the joy of the Officers’ Mess. He brought into all his work such a light-hearted carefree temperament that he radiated merriment. We shall not easily forget the part he played nor lose the remembrance of his happy singing, the favourite song with all being his “Tin Gee Gee" (nothing to do with the C.O.’s horse) and “If the wind had only blown the other way, I might have been a different girl to-day.”
Then there was Adams and Benning in song and dance; Cozens (the Sam Mayo artist) who also earned fame by his presentation of “Stewed Prunes and Prisms”; and the good Irishman Harry O’Driscoll, whose fine baritone voice was heard at its best in the singing of those plaintive melodies of his native land which became familiar to us all.
“She sang the wild songs of her dear native land,
And lovers around her were sighing;
Ah, little they dream who delight in her song,
How the heart of the singer is breaking.”
That was the tenor of one of his songs, and Harry O’Driscoll, loyal Irishman that he was, sang it as though his own heart was breaking - and won success accordingly.
