My duties as BOWO were to sanction and provide all the necessary requirements for the brigade. I was the senior rank in our mess as my predecessor had gone presumably for demob. Our main supplies depot was at Kuala Lumpur, which was around seventy miles from Port Dickson, and I made frequent trips there to obtain supplies for our units. I had left Eric back in Singapore and he redirected my mail for me. On the Sundays I went to Seramban in the evening along with a sergeant who came from Stapenhill in Staffs. We attended one of the churches there, having borrowed a jeep for transport. We became very friendly with a family called Bresnahan. Mr. Bresnahan had been in charge of the civilian prison in peace time and I think they had gone underground during the Jap occupation. He had a wife and two daughters. They used to invite us to supper after service and then I would drive back to HQ. After a few weeks they invited Edgar Dolphin and myself to stay with them for a few days, if we could obtain leave, which I duly did. We had a very enjoyable time with them going round the markets and on one occasion Mr. Bresnahan took us to the prison to show us round. There was an open air scaffold which had been much used by the Japs and I mounted the steps for an experience which was rather daunting. He said some Chinese women had been hanged there by the Japs. Christmas 1945 was not much of an occasion although we did visit some of the other troops. There were a few sergeants ar our HQ and quite a bit of Christmas day was spent in drinking as there was not a lot to do. One evening we invited the Dutch nurses who were stationed in another bungalow a little distance from us. The nurses later went across to Java as Java was then a Dutch colony. In the New Year we had a regrettable tragedy: one of the sergeants got fighting drunk and ended up taking a jeep, during which he picked up a passenger. We paid a visit to see him as he had been taken to the nurses’ accommodation and to look at him you would have thought he was just asleep. The next day we formed a convoy and buried him at the Church of England graveyard in Seramban. It was necessary to bury people quickly because of the heat. I, along with the WOII had to go through his personal effects to be sent home to his mother. His name was Peter (Joe) Dovey and he came from somewhere In East Anglia. Joe was killed early in 1946. In the evening after he had been killed in the collision, one of his friends said to me, “Say a prayer for Joe, George” which I endeavoured to do. It wasn’t what you would expect from the sergeants’ mess but it was quite a surprise and showed how much they thought of Peter. How drink can transform a perfectly normal person into a fighting maniac.