"Pick up your parrots and monkeys!"

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Heather McGrouther of CSV BBC Coventry & Warwickshire Action Desk on behalf of John Mayall and his wife Kath Mayall and has been added to the site with their permission. The author fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

Whenever we were going on the ferry to go on holiday to the Isle of Man, my dad (who was in the British Army Signal Corps) used to say, "Pick up your parrots and monkeys and fall in on the jetty facing the boats!"

It must have been a phrase that was used when he was boarding the ferry to and from North Africa during the war.

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