To all that new Giff and to those that never had the pleasure of his company this has come to me as a very sad and unexpected announcement.

It is true to say that Giff was a lovable big guy in so many ways. His size, his humour, his wit, his irrepressible character not forgetting the serious amount of beer he could pack away in any one single NAAFI session and then go back for the NAAFI night shift.

I first Met Giff at Rolston Camp in January 1979 when I was the latest NIG to join 9 Plt, C (Mushroom) Coy. He along with others chipped in with the usual NIG baiting that goes on. But more importantly he was the first guy in the Plt to make me laugh and the first to make me feel at home. He was also first guy show me how to open a beer bottle with an SLR mag. His charge for this invaluable technique - He drank my beer that he had just opened for me.

Giff and I shared five years together, 3 years in 9 Plt followed by 2 years in the Mortar Plt. The Mortars being a very specialised drinking club, you could only get Indirect Fire Support when portable kidney dialysis was available. 

I cannot begin to consolidate the highs and lows we shared, but we had some great times and its always the good times that were usually followed by temporary amnesia about the night before, followed by extreme nausea lasting well past NAAFI break.

Some Highs & Lows

1. Meeting Giff's Dad for the first time - Giff, me and Mick Keating decide to lodge at Giff's house for the weekend. We arrive mid afternoon and drop the bags off with his mum. We immediately assault the Queens Head in Borehamwood. Having fully charged our mags and primed our grenades we attempt the jolly jape home. A few metres from our final objective Mick gives me a crushing rugby tackle straight through a perfectly manicured privet hegde leaving a 2 man mouse-hole in it. While rolling around on a front lawn the property owner appears at his front door.  Giff took immediate control of the situation. I remember him saying "Hello Dad, this is Mick, this is Mac  and Er uh-mm, this is a hole in your hedge".

2. Trusting Giff with the choggie run - Situation, day 3 on the beach in Nice. Me, Mick and Giff bumming it with an international collective of other bums and backpackers. We scrape together our last 30 or 40 francs (£3/4). We promote Giff to CQMS and his mission is to get as much hooch as possible with the foreign toilet tissue. He scuttled away into the dimming light of dusk. He returns before dark carrying two plain white carrier bags with the reassuring "chink chink" sound of glass on glass and a half eaten  baguette in his Gob. Giff is exceptionally pleased with his purchase. In one bag several  baguettes and in the other, the wholly grail, 6 bottles of wine. He then produces change? How could this be? He was truly the Messiah, feeding the 5,000. We cracked open the first bottle while Giff explained that they were only 2 francs each (20p). Yes, Giff had bought 6 litres of cooking wine. It tasted more like malt vinegar. Just the accompaniment for the stale baguettes. It was that grim not even the Aussie backpackers would drink it! So we did.

3. Giff, the true Romantic - Location, R & R in BC, Canada, Giff and I plus a few attachments had an entertaining afternoon getting ripped off in a pool room by the local hustlers. Giff not being a real player of the game applied his attention to the bar. Before having to leave our underpants as a deposit we decided to leave. We asked the taxi driver to drop us off where the bar was open the latest. Inside the club we got separated for a while. At closing time I found Giff on his knees proposing to a young women, and I could appreciate her charms, that was until a local confided in me that she was in fact a he, from the stage show that played earlier that evening! Should have gone to Specsavers, me and Giff both. 

Did I say highs and Lows, with Giff you were always on the upward curve. I last saw Giff in the late summer of 1985, he was on admin run from Stiebis prior to going on leave. He popped in to Ops Training to give me his usual, less than polite greeting that he saved for me. He said next time in he would bank a day extra off for a beer together.

Time and tide moved on, we never had that last beer. But you know, we did a shed load with out it. God bless you Giff.

To his Family and close friends I send my heartfelt condolences.

Crack a Cold One old friend

 Swift & Bold

Met Giff on a number of visits to Steibis, had some great times with him on the hills in the Summer followed by greater times in the bar afterwards - RIP mate