Swap Shop

Chapter from the book ’Don’t Call Them Bennys’ by Mark Shickell

The euphoria of late summer 1982 when our troops, sailors and airmen sailed back in to Southampton waters having returned victorious from the Falkland Islands was now a fast fading memory as Mark Shickell looked out through the rain lashed window above the sprinkler system fabrication workshop in East Kilbride, Scotland. Another long, wet and dreary winter stuck in a dead end job in a dead end town and for how much longer were the thoughts running through Mark’s head as he prepared for another day at B & B Fire Protection.

Little did Mark know that later that very same day he would receive a phone call and a job offer that would quite literally change his life forever and far beyond anything he could have imagined. From this point on there was quite literally no going back as the author packed his bags and set off on his journey south for a hilarious and adventure packed 2 years working on the Falkland Islands, an adventure that subsequently became the can’t put down book, Don’t Call Them Bennys.

Don’t Call Them Bennys has been described as Auf Wiedersehen Pet on steroids with copious helpings of laughing gas, sex, drugs and rock n roll flung in for good measure.