The match itself was unremarkable and played on a wide open sports field with almost no spectators. We lost 2-0.
Now hungry, after going back to the Mess to shower and change, three of us decided to get a taxi to take us into Eindhoven where we went to a café for a snack as it was still too early for a proper evening meal. We spotted a cinema showing, in English, 'The House of Wax'. In we trotted, bought tickets, and joined a queue moving forward into the auditorium down a long passage. It was quite crowded and, on seeing a gap in the crowd, I moved to go into it and promptly hit my nose hard on what I hadn't realised was a wall of mirrors! I had tears in my eyes when the usherette handed me my 3D specs. It was the first 3D film any of us had seen and, as with most other people, we ducked when objects apparently came out of the screen to hit us.
Following the show we made our way to a cosy little café called the Spinning Wheel. It was run by three delightful ladies who looked after us very well. After a grilled gammon steak followed by dessert and coffee, and after having paid the bill, we stood up from our table to leave when, in so doing, I hit my head on the big bronze ball at the base of a mostly crystal chandelier hanging over our table. The ball was attached to a central rod on which there was a hook from which the whole thing hung. On hitting my head, quite hard, the whole contraption unhooked and crashed to the floor around me, fusing most of the lights in the room at the same time. In spite of the damage and inevitable kerfuffle, the ladies were more concerned as to my well-being than anything else. There were profuse apologies on all sides, and much concern for me from other diners. A taxi was hailed and we returned to Volkel.
Our hockey tour was far from over, for we next went to RAF Wahn for another match. I was blamed for something I didn't do in the Mess at Wahn. It was a mixed Mess. In the evening after dinner I was innocently sitting in the fairly crowded anteroom, minding my own business trying to read a paper when, suddenly, a junior WRAF Officer let out a scream. On looking up, as one does, I saw a blue, wind-up, clockwork mouse making its way towards her from my side of the room. As it got close to her, up went her legs to reveal a pair of yellow and dark-green hooped passion killers! As one can imagine this caused great amusement among the men and a lot of tutting from the females, one of whom, of Senior Rank, accused me of setting the mouse off. It took a while trying to convince her of my innocence and I was rescued from her verbal onslaught only after at least three of the menfolk interrupted and spoke up in my defence. Whoever perpetrated the trick got away with it but lost his mouse.
Whilst whom we played next, or where, is no longer recollected, but records state that we lost 6-0 to RAF Fassberg. I think our final match of this trip was against a Unit in or near Hamburg. My stay there was memorable for different reasons.
We travelled by train through the endlessly flat countryside, with evidence of the recent war all around. At centres of population there was reconstruction work, hard work, being done wherever one looked. On approaching these one first saw forests of tower cranes at building sites, something we did not have back home. Shortly after passing through Harburg and before crossing the Elbe bridge, which had somehow survived, there, at the trackside, by a group of sidings, were gangs of women cleaning bricks from bomb sites for re-use. It was being done on an industrial scale with great piles of bricks and rubble all around. On entering Hamburg itself signs of the ravages of war were still obvious all the way until we eventually arrived at the Hauptbahnhof where we alighted.
The Officers in the team spent their nights in the Streits Hotel (the Officers Hotel) overlooking the Binnen Alster close to the centre of the city. It was German- 65