Our regiment left Liverpool in September 1940, having been re-equipped after losing all our guns and vehicles in the Dunkirk evacuation. It seemed ironic to us as we set sail that the aerial attacks were intensifying and we were leaving to protect some foreign country and taking our anti-aircraft guns with us. Surely, we thought, we should be guarding our own country.

However, it was six weeks before we reached our destination, having taken the long sea route, including the voyage round Cape Horn, to avoid possible attacks by German U-boats. We landed in Egypt and proceeded to our camp outside Cairo.

At that time the Army had not yet established its own postal service, so we had to use civilian postage stamps. Strict orders were given that when writing home we must on no account divulge the name of the country where we were stationed. The enemy must not know where our regiment was.

We wrote letters (which all had to be censored), and then affixed the postage stamps.

No, we must not tell our families we were in Egypt. No, we didn't need to. The postage stamps had the word 'Egypt' on them, plus a portrait of King Farouk!!

Typical Army red-tape.

- Arthur Cope