Paddy's Shirt
Good to see you back again Cliff
Your story about Paddy giving up his shirt in exchange for Lira takes me back again to Singapore. In an earlier post I mentioned that a few of us went ashore at Singapore a few days after the Japanese surrender. We were amazed to see that all the shops were well stocked with goods. On board the carrier we had purchased Malayan Dollars (printed in Great Britain) for two shillings and fourpence each but when we tried to spend them the locals were very suspicious and would only treat them as Rupees (one shilling and sixpence each).
We had heard stories about the English army swapping jars of instant coffee or cigarettes for cameras when they occupied Germany so we thought we would try our luck. We found a high class shop with Leica and Contax cameras on show and asked the shop keeper how many cigarettes he would want for a Leica. He replied the cost of the camera was £100, he valued a packet of Players at one shilling and after a short calculation said he would accept 2000 packets of cigarette. We left the shop in a hurry, these wily oriental gentlemen were too canny for us.
Carry on with the good work,
Gordon