Like Chuglug and Danny I remember well the return to the UK from JHQ Rheindahlen in July 1975.
Having vacated our Moenchengladbach quarter we went on leave down to Italy for a week or two and on our return stayed a night at Rheindahlen's families transit mess. Next day we loaded the car with everything we could and drove to Ostend for the overnight Belgian ferry to Dover. Arriving early at Dover we went through the usual (unusual?) customs formalities, but in our case we obviously got a customs officer who had a thing about personnel returning to the UK with BFG registered cars.
Having said we had nothing to declare that we shouldn't have, he was in no mood to believe us and having examined our receipt for the Volvo that we'd purchased 13-months previously thus making it eligible for import to the UK without paying tax, he wanted to examine everything else in the car to see whether we were carrying contraband or whatever - were we carrying more than the allowed amounts of spirits and wine, cigarettes etc. or were we potential smugglers?
So this so-and-so of a customs officer was determined to check everything and everything had to be taken out of the car for his examination - HiFi, camera, bike, watches etc. etc. and this when we had two young kids to deal with too. I had all my receipts to hand and eventually he let us go - but it was a most unsettling experience and wondered was this the normal HMC method of dealing with BFG personnel returning to the UK?
Photo below shows how loaded we were shortly before our departure from Rheindahlen - we even had a bike on the top of the roof-rack!
I did earlier, after hearing Danny's adventure on buying his car in France, mention I'd do a piece on how one did it at JHQ - so watch his space!
As a PS. This is how the main entrance to JHQ looked in 1974. May bring back a few memories to those who served there.
My abiding memory of the place was that it was the most confusing "rabbit-warren" of a building I've ever entered, after a month or two I think I'd cracked the layout and could navigate around the place without getting lost, but occasionally I'd get caught out and find myself in a corridor full of Belgians or Dutch who wanted to know what I was doing there! Getting out from their enclave was simply a matter of finding the word "uitgang" - Dutch for Way Out!
