Sod That for a Game of Soldiers: A Personal Account of the Falklands War and 3 Para’s Bloody Battle for Mount Longdon

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The Bradford-based artist, who turned professional in 2000 after years of painting as a hobby, spent months researching the conflict before creating the painting.

Definitions include: something you have now is worth more than two things you have just a chance of getting. I remember in my police training being given a lecture by some armed police – they told everyone that, faced with killing someone, you would hesitate. I don’t agree. Soldiers react instantly to threats. Then again, the armed police also tried to be clever by sending a loaded pistol around the audience with a blank round in the chamber. They thought someone would not be able to resist pulling the trigger. When the pistol was returned to them, a former soldier had made it safe, and they were presented with the blank round, removed from the chamber, as well. We were told he should not have done that because he wasn’t trained. The medal ribbons on the guy’s chest said otherwise.

When Bob and Dave – whom the artist describes as the “most knowledgeable man on history I have ever known” – began to discuss key moments of the four-year conflict, it ignited a yearning in him to create the painting. We ate in a basic canteen, which served basic yet wholesome food. The army cooks were helped by local Protestant civilians, and hatred of all things Catholic was very evident. I guess if you were brought up in such troubled communities your opinions would be tainted. They were good to us and always asked us if we needed anything from outside as we couldn’t leave the Mill unless on patrol. The rest of the Mill was made up mainly of accommodation, with some rest areas and briefing rooms, all very basic, and we had two pay telephones outside the canteen (these were the days before mobile phones). We always knew when something was up – either an incident or operation – as you would find guards on the telephones so that you could not use them.

The conflict in Northern Ireland referred to as The Troubles started in the late 1960s and ended with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, although British Soldiers were still deployed until 2007. The conflict was primarily ethnic and sectarian, but also had its roots set in the historical discrimination of the indigenous Irish. Generally, the Unionists (mainly Protestants) wanted to remain within the United Kingdom and the Nationalists (who were mainly Catholic) wanted to leave the United Kingdom and form a united Ireland (north and south). From Forging the Link: A Handbook of Hashomer Hatzair in England and Israel (London: Hashomer Hatzair, 1952): The British Government has always tried to take a neutral stance on the Ireland problem, made easier given the fact that until recently Loyalists outnumbered Republicans. If Ireland did become whole again, would the present Irish Republic welcome that, given the potential for more violence? Personally, I do hope that one day, in whatever form it may take, Ireland becomes whole again. Context: The author is writing from the Juan Fernandez Islands, off the coast of Chile; “ Man Friday” is “ actually a fisherman called Willy”:I have read books that describe the covert nature of entering and exiting the Divis flats in West Belfast and being greeted with stones and petrol bombs. Sure, you needed to make sure that comings and goings were not routine so that a pattern could not be identified. Confrontations often happened but I never experienced the level of violence that some people describe when entering the flats. It must have been difficult to take for the locals having an observation post and secret squirrel stuff based at the top of the Divis flats in the middle of the republican enclave of West Belfast. Definitions include: In the West/Central Canadian accent, "about" is pronounced somewhere between "aboot" and "a boat". Barker said he was inspired to create the piece after he and his older brother began to talk about their grandfather William Barker, who served in the war. With the deep sandbanks of the trenches in the foreground, torn barbed wire fencing and trees that have been destroyed by bombing, this poignant piece of artwork, painted in the nostalgic-style that this Yorkshire-born and bred artist is known and admired for, is a timely reminder of how humanity can transcend the horrors of war.

The basic meaning is clear: “—- this” expresses disapproval of a situation. But I’m curious about the modifying phrase. We knew this was a very special painting as soon as we saw it and we are thrilled to bring it to the attention of people in the Exeter area.”This phrase occurs, for example, in A new start after 60: I found love after a painful divorce—and we moved to an uninhabited island, by Emma Beddington, published in The Guardian (London and Manchester, England) of Monday 3 rd April 2023: They were there to “keep the peace”, to “assist the civil powers” and to “fight terrorism”. On their return to Britain, there were no street parties or victory parades to welcome them home. The British Army has been deployed on the streets of Northern Ireland from August 1969 to 2007, over thirty years. As a side note, and to jump eagerly onto one of my favourite hobbyhorses, Terry Pratchett is of course one of the finest writers writing today. The shot was fired by Private Ian Thain of the 1st Battalion the Light Infantry, the battalion that I was attached to. Thain was standing about twenty to thirty feet from me when he knelt and took aim at Reilly and pulled the trigger. I didn’t see Thain do this and, because of the noise, I didn’t hear it. Thain shot Reilly from a distance of about 100 feet. Hitting a moving target at that range with everything that was going on was some shot. I rushed down to Reilly’s body along with members of the RUC; I could see the entry wound as well as the exit wound in his torso. He would have died instantly, nobody could have survived that amount of damage. The SLR uses a 7.62 round, a big round that causes a lot of damage. The current rifle used by the British Army, the SA80, uses the much smaller NATO-standard 5.56 round. Actually it was when I was mentally concocting a headline-snatching article about going fishing 50 times without a bite and making history in the Guinness Book of Records, that I finally realised that I had given in and did not expect to catch a fish.

King would transport fuel by boat and quad bike to the cottage several times a year. “The first December, it was about -6C and I remember spending a day in wet snow bringing in half a ton of coal and thinking: ‘Bugger this for a game of soldiers!’”There is an idiom that seems to be distinctly British: "---- this/that for a game of soldiers" where the dashes are replaced with various swear words. For example: "Sod this for a game of soldiers." It usually seems to involve profanity but there are some cleaned-up variations such as "Stuff this for a game of soldiers."