Hi Eric

I thought you might like this one. We have a photo already in our gallery for which they are all nicely posing:

http://www.commandoveterans.org/cdoGallery/v/units/2/5+troop/2+cmdo+5+troop+dumfries+1941a.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1

Everything looks just perfect. However we have just been sent this photo which is of them trying to set it up. If you look carefully Cyril Lima seems to be getting the blame for something as several heads are turned towards him. Also look at Sgt Challinton with his head in his hands. He is seated next to Ben Brown. Is he just adjusting his cap, or perhaps simply despairing that they?ll ever get the photo finished:

http://www.commandoveterans.org/cdoGallery/v/units/2/5+troop/jke015.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1

All the best Pete

Peter,

This more recently received Picture makes it a delightful Before & After situation. I can well imagine that Cyril Lima was the Cause of some distraction from the purpose in hand. Cyril was the most natural Clown. He was actually doing " Goon " type humour long before the Goon's came into existance, and scenes and situations that he conjured up were all done just by himself.

I have always thought that it was a shame that he had not encountered them in the immediate post war Days. He would have fitted in somewhere between Harry Secombe Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. He was much nearer to them than Michael Bentine. He would then have been just as famous as them. At one stage in Ayr, he was Billetted in the same house as your Dad, who used to describe to us some of the Antics that Cyril got up to, quite apart from what we saw ourselves day by day. Post War, at the time when he was working with Paddy Donovan on Security at Heathrow Airport, he took up singing Lessons, but I have no idea how far he got with that.

An aside regarding the Numbered Photograph, that was of course pre- St Nazaire.

Regards, Eric.

Eric Buckmaster wrote:I can well imagine that Cyril Lima was the Cause of some distraction from the purpose in hand. Cyril was the most natural Clown. He was actually doing " Goon " type humour long before the Goon's came into existance, and scenes and situations that he conjured up were all done just by himself.

I have always thought that it was a shame that he had not encountered them in the immediate post war Days. He would have fitted in somewhere between Harry Secombe Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. He was much nearer to them than Michael Bentine. He would then have been just as famous as them.