Good old moral boosting egg banjo cooked on the Dixie lid …or the wagon frying pan as I refused to rough it lol
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The dixie lid was a hiding to nowhere, EVERTHING stuck to that! Essentials were a big frying pan and if you could get hold of one a jaffle iron.
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You mean you didn’t have centralised messing? Tsk ! Tsk! (as we did in our nice REMFy HQ!)
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Although an egg banjo, at 0400 on a cold winter morning on a bridge site is the food of kings, I never knew that that was why it was called an egg banjo!
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For those that do not know what an “Egg Banjo” is…
An “egg banjo” is a sandwich of a runny fried egg between two thick slices of bread (if possible, buttered or with margarine), often accompanied by a mug of “gunfire” (a drink of tea and rum).
And for the record; I’ve had plenty of Egg Banjos when I was growing up in Puerto Rico in the 80s, but it was just an egg sandwich to me. No mug of Gunfire though… I’d settle with some freshly squeezed OJ since my dad kept a citrus tree in the backyard…
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Refined and fastidious young Army Clerk that I was, I always insisted that the cook let my egg be (by normal terms) overcooked, with the yolk smashed and crispy - thus avoiding the classic banjo manouvreing as described above. The Army Catering Corps’ finest would often rebuff my request along the lines of “Eff off you poncey shiny-arse” which whilst I deplored the vocabulary, began to at least recognise the sentiment.
As I’ve recounted before, I dimly began to realise that surviving, let alone flourishing, in my chosen career, might be harder than I thought!
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Dont forget the blue legend of soltau,if they ever got hold of him back then it would of all been over,he knew where to find you in a hide,ok its a given when its noisy and it smells like panzer.
He was a hidden hero,he didnt do egg banjos lol
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An egg banjo is an banjo,cos when it drips you play the banjo to get it off your uniform no matter how clean or grubby,you refer to the tea and rum beng the Gun thing,not in a british cavalry regiment,a brew or a wet is hot tea,rum or port or other is not specified or is given to any serving soldier in the field.
Only when it is possibly deemed necessary by order of its commanding officer or any member of all 3 arms of the services in the UK,otherwise it is an offence under the military act of law.
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Yeah; the Tea/Rum thing was only done in the olden days (1890s) nowadays it is frowned upon to be drinking alcohol while on duty.
It is unknown when gunfire was concocted, but it is known that it was mixed by British Army soldiers during the 1890s. Gunfire is served by officers and non-commissioned officers to lower ranks before a morning attack, as a form of “Dutch Courage” and as a celebration before a Passing out parade. It is also traditionally served to soldiers in their beds by their officers on Christmas Day at Reveille if they are deployed over Christmas. Individual regiments may carry out the ritual on other days: for example, in the Royal Tank Regiment, gunfire is served on Cambrai Day; in the Queen’s Royal Hussars on Balaclava Day and Saint Patrick’s Day; and in the Royal Dragoon Guards gunfire made with whiskey on St Patrick’s Day.
During the Korean War, members of the American Military Police Corps were given gunfire by British soldiers under the guise of it being normal tea after a recovery mission. This led to intoxication of the MPs who then drove an armored recovery vehicle and some army jeeps into a camp gate as a result.
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Grog, rum mixed with water, was part of the daily ration served to sailors of the Royal Navy from the 1700s. Gunfire is probably a variation of the older Grog, which was itself a variation of older practices to sterilize water by mixing it with beer or some other liquid containing alcohol. Lemon or Lime was often mixed into grog. Lemon often does into tea. It seems likely Gunfire existed long before the name.
I wonder if Gunfire was introduced to increase soldier moral in the face of rapidly advancing military technology. Artillery and guns became much more deadly right around 1890. The Maxim machine gun was introduced in 1884.
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The 4th/7th royal dragoon guards amalgamated with the 5th Eniskillen dragoon guards back in the early 90’s,they were called the 5th skins.
When they got together they were called the 4 skins,great british humour.
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You can’t make this stuff up. 
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It cost a lot of money if you passed the Port by picking the bottle up to pass it across the across the table to your compatriot,you only ever do it once.
Some folk ended up with expensive mess bills.
Its a love hate relationship with a Panzer,no matter how good looking they are.
Monstrous carbunckles i say lol:joy:
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