Joe Wright's lucky escape

This is Bryce Wilcock of Southmoor community school, Sunderland entering Joe Wright onto the website terms and conditions of use.

Egyptian Muggers!

After war hero Joe Wright from Sunderland had served his time in Dumfries in Scotland he and his fellow soldiers were told to get their gear ready and they were put on a train to Liverpool. When they arrived they didn’t know where they were going to go and why they were there. When they arrived in Liverpool they were placed on a troop ship and were shipped to Egypt in North Africa. Joe had a brother who worked in a paper mill in Egypt and the sergeant allowed him to have an eight day holiday to see his brother in the paper mills and talk to him. Joe Wright then had his gear and a piece of paper with his brothers work address on. He got on the train to Cairo and in that time he fell asleep on the train, A fellow British soldier (Red cap) woke up Joe and said “Don’t fall asleep on these trains. The Arabs will take everything you have without you even realising.” Joe gets off the train in Cairo and asks two Egyptian men to point him in the right direction to the paper mill. Joe begins following the two men as they lead him towards a back alley. All of a sudden the two men run away. Joe looks behind to find two Egyptian police officers behind him. They tell Joe that the two men who he was following would have killed him and mugged him if he went any further. The two policemen guided Joe Wright to the paper mill to see his brother. He and his brother had a meal at a posh restaurant in town. After that they got in a taxi and asked him to take them to his brothers’ house. Joe’s brother realised the driver had turned around and looked and seen Joe’s Army uniform. His brother pulled out a revolver and said “drop us off here.” This was because the taxi driver would have tried to mug Joe and his brother.

Joe was very lucky during the war as he only ever had one accident although he had seen his friends being killed around him. His accident happened when the convoy he was in began to move Joe couldn’t get his motorbike to start. He kept pushing down on the clutch to get it to start when all of a sudden it started with him hanging onto it. The Motorbike took him through a hedge until he managed to stop it. He had badly cut his leg and needed a bandage on and that was his only injury.

Joe was the only soldier in his group that played the organ. The sergeant would ask Joe Wright to play for him and the men lots of times. When he first joined the army and he was stationed in York (Fullford Barracks) the sergeant asked him to play the piano at the dance that night. His General then told him that he had to clean the Generals room out that night. Joe said, “I wasn’t brought here to clean up after you I’m not a nancy I came here to fight”. The General then said, “You came here to take orders now go and clean my room!” Off Joe went to clean his room. The next morning they all lined up for parole. The sergeant said, “Joe Wright, why weren’t you playing the piano at the dance last night?” Joe said, “The General made me clean his room out”. The sergeant wasn’t happy and had severe words with the General.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.