An Phoblacht/Republican News   ·   Thursday October 26 1995

A jolly little fax arrived on my desk the other day from the British Army Information Services in Lisburn. It told me that the men and women of the First Battallion, The Royal Scots Regiment based in South Armagh are off on a trek from Newry to the Far East in aid of the BBC's Children in Need. "Basically it's a very simple idea," explains Major George Givens. "We have worked out a route going east around the world from Newry in County Down.

"For the land distances the soldiers have to clock up the relevant distance on the exercise bikes while to get across the various stretches of water they have to cover the distance on the rowing machines.

"On land it's not so bad because they can take a rest, but if they are on the rowing machines they have to keep going or theoretically end up stranded in the middle of the ocean."

I think you can all guess what my suggestion to the Major and his merry men and women is going to be. Why not take your whole regiment and do the real thing. Cycle to Warrenpoint and row back to Blighty and on to Singapore. Better still cycle over the sea. You'd get plenty of sponsorship money for that.

No sooner had I dealt with Major Givens than another British army PR initiative crossed my desk. On Wednesday morning, 25 October I got wind of a talk on "media relations and the army" due to be given in the Europa Hotel in Belfast by the British army's Chief Information Officer, Nigel Gillies. It was a lunchtime bash scheduled for 12.30 with meal laid on.

I got in touch immediately.

The public-relations firm handling the event, Holywood-based Anderson Kenny PR Consultants, at first said I could go if I paid £10. But then they phoned back to say I couldn't go. Apparently the British Ministry of Defence vetoed my inclusion.

Apologetic PR type Ian Jeffers from AKPR said that it was nothing selective or personal - the Irish News and Belfast News Letter were also being told they weren't wanted.

To my colleagues in those two organs I must say sorry for messing up your free meal, but I think that between us we have scuppered yet another brilliant Lisburn PR op.

When the British are not selling their weapons to every tin pot right-wing regime in the world they are supplying them to loyalists in Ireland. Or "losing them". Last week the British Ministry of Defence gave up the search for 24 rockets which disappeared from a Scottish quayside after being unloaded from a ship on their way back from the Gulf War. The rockets were used to fire aluminium strip filings to confuse radar and missile targeting systems. Fired at people they can maim and kill. Strangely the men from the Ministry refuse to name the Scottish port from which the rockets walked. Is this because they may have ended up in the hands of Scottish loyalists, for long one of the main conduits for arms for the UDA and UVF?

"The extension of a month to the decommissioning scheme was always on the cards, as many felt they had been given far too little time to probe the ins and outs of the scheme. But we may well ask if we have yet another White Elephant on our hands."

What's this? The first report of a secret international decommissioning commission? Another scoop for me? Sadly, no. It's just the editorial from the October issue of the Irish Skipper ,

the journal of the Irish fishing industry, talking about the EU scheme to take older vessels out of commission.

Certain Cork city gardaí seem to have a petty vendetta against republicans. Daunt Square in the city is a traditional centre for leafleting and petitioning by all sorts of groups. A while back a Saoirse group was collecting signatures when they were accused by a garda of obstructing the very wide thoroughfare with their litttle table. They weren't of course. Nonetheless the wheels of justice ground on. Names were taken Finbarr Walsh duly appeared in Cork District Court on 19 October. He was fined £1. It was the equivalent of the 24 shillings fine prescribed in the law under which he was prosecuted - the British 1851 Criminal Justice Act. The monetary value of the garda and court time wasted on this farce was not revealed.