FANCY A SHOWER ?

Well, this is what you did on The Rock.

First you rummaged in the bins at the back of the cook-house until you found a tin about the size of a Heinz soup can, preferably with no crustacean inhabitant. Secondly, you cut the tin in half and threw away the top bit. Next you drilled a hole in the centre of the bottom. Then you got a piece of stiff wire, coat hanger type was perfect, and you cut a length about 10" long. You stuck about an inch though the hole in the tin from the open (top) end and bent it over. You then got the hard bit. Beg, borrow, or steal, (usually the latter) a small quantity of lead from somewhere and melt it in a receptacle over a fire and when molten it was poured into the tin with the wire sticking out of it. It cooled rapidly. When cold, the upper part of the wire was bent into a hook shape and BINGO you had your very own Dangler. Many a time was heard the cry, ‘Who’s nicked my ******* Dangler?’. This did not refer to a physical assault on the nether regions of a squaddie, simply that his shower Dangler had gone walkabout. You see, water was a precious commodity on The Rock and the showers were fitted as supplied with a lavatory kind of pull chain which had to be pulled and held down down for water to appear. This proved to be the typically military way of making a simple thing like taking a shower very difficult. Have you ever tried to wash your entire body with one hand?. Not easy. But the intrepid squaddie, erk or matelot solved the problem at a stroke by chucking the chains away and inventing the ‘Dangler’. Like most home-made objects on The Rock, Danglers were decorated with intricate motifs entwined around the name of the owner as thieving of Danglers was rife, due to lazy individuals who could not be bothered to make their own. Woe betide the ‘borrower’ of anothers Dangler as a clout on the head with a lead-filled can was not funny.

©: R. Morrison. 23 Jul. 01