The Reluctant Solider: Two Years Out
Author Keith Irving (90) talks about his new book as a debut author, with his wife Margaret (91).
Transcript
00:00 Well, I'm Keith Irvine, I'm from Hexham in Northumberland and I've been in Inverness
00:05 since 1961 and I thoroughly enjoy the place. It's a lovely area of the country.
00:11 You've been married too?
00:13 We've been married for, as I say, 70 years next year and we got married in 1956. '54.
00:22 '54.
00:23 '54.
00:24 Malcolm was born.
00:25 And I'm not going to say we were always happy, we had good spots but we always got over it
00:31 and that was it. We're still together.
00:33 So can you tell us a bit more about your book?
00:37 The book I wrote because of the grandchildren asking me what I used to do when I was in
00:44 the army and telling them the stories was, I thought well, rather than tell them, I'll
00:52 write the book. And we just moved from Lough Nesset to Inverness so I bought this old word
01:00 processor and I started writing it then. It took me about a year to write it. I'd just
01:09 finished it and sort of just left it. But I had got about ten copies made by a shop
01:16 in Inverness. It had these clips on it and it wasn't a proper book. I got about ten copies
01:26 and put them round the family. So that was the way of the book. But they were always
01:31 interested in it.
01:32 What sort of stories are in your book?
01:36 Stories about, I mean, if I had to go on a breakdown or if I had to be in a convoy, I
01:44 had to be at the end of the convoy and if anything broke down I had to get it going
01:48 again. So it could be quite hairy at times. So I was really just like a mechanic working
01:55 in a garage here. And that was it. But I used to be on parade and I remember one day I was
02:01 on parade and this captain came along and I don't know what I'd done wrong because I
02:06 was usually pretty smart right now. At one time I was on parade with hundreds of men
02:12 and the sergeant major shouted from the middle of the square and pointed at me and said,
02:17 "Very smart, very well turned out." So that was good. But this other one came up to my
02:23 face and said, "You wouldn't think you'd been on parade since you had boy's service."
02:27 And I didn't use to go on parade because I was always working. And I says to myself,
02:31 "Boy's service? What boy's service?" I was never in the army in the boy's service, I
02:36 tell you.
02:36 (slurping)