This promised post would like to describe two people I encountered while in the Air Force stationed on Crete, surveilling North Africa in 1968 and 1969.

In my unit was a gentleman who was, the best way to describe, Auntie Mame, subdued at maybe fifty percent, but with flame still bright enough to warrant the remark to be quoted in just a bit.

Sgt. Sandy C was always attired in perfectly pressed uniforms, his cigaret perched at the very extreme tips of the two fingers holding it, hand absolutely erect.  Reacting to a funny remark, seldom just a laugh, rather head thrown back with a rapid-fire ha-ha-ha trill.

I could go on, but I think you will have conjured an image by now.  I don’t know if saying I enjoyed working with him is required, he was a a bundle of camp.  And he knitted.

He claimed to have a fiancée, as opposed to a fiancé, to return to back in South Carolina (I think), and I am as sure as I can be that it was true; if I thought of Sandy and betrothed after we parted company, I pictured happy sisters.

Which brings me to the second of the two folk I mentioned at the start.  I overheard once a passing exchange about Sgt. C.

A kid – ‘right out of central casting for a Forties bomber crew’ – opined: ‘I’m not saying the guy’s a fag, I just think he’d be happier if he was a dame.’

Essentially spot-on, kind not rude, and nigh enlightened.

Where are these people today?  I just hope they’re warm.