Albert Balmer

Albert Balmer was just one of the thousands upon thousands of men to be sent abroad on national service. But few if any of those `peacetime conscripts` can have been blessed with his pin-sharp memory for detail. This memoir of two short but eventful years in the late 1950s is therefore one of the most vivid accounts yet published of the time when ordinary men stood alongside regular soldiers, facing the same dangers. It is also an important record of the British forces` role in Cyprus, an often-ignored and frequently misunderstood chapter of military history. Called up in 1957, Albert soon finds himself being sent from training camp to training camp within Britain, learning artillery skills and the craft of wireless operation, as well as...