Stand Up Virgin Soldiers

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The core of the plot is the romantic triangle formed by the protagonist, a conscript soldier named Private Brigg, a worldly professional soldier named Sergeant Driscoll and Phillipa Raskin, the daughter of the Regimental Sergeant Major. The location is a British army base in Singapore during the Malayan Emergency. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sourcesin this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. The film's popularity spawned a 1977 sequel, Stand Up, Virgin Soldiers [1] with Nigel Davenport repeating his role as Sgt Driscoll.

So Evil, So Young (1961) Lucy Owens (Jocelyn Britton) and her friend Claire (Bernice Swanson) burgle some jewellery from a mansion but are disturbed by… The Virgin Soldiers is a 1966 comic novel by Leslie Thomas, inspired by his own experiences of National Service in the British Army. [1] It was Thomas' debut novel; he had previously published an autobiography. The Virgin Soldiers sold millions of copies during the author´s lifetime. [2] Plot summary [ edit ] This work introduces several new characters but the most interesting has to be Brigg’s son Charlie. Leslie Thomas makes fun of the British Army in South East Asia and particularly Malaya. The story and writing are similarly stripped down which means this is not a work of gorgeous adventure or prose. Miriam Margolyes appears as Elephant Ethel, a prostitute at the Golden Grape whorehouse. Among the other well-known faces in the cast are Robin Nedwell as Lt Grainger (pictured above) who sends Brigg’s platoon on a mindless pig hunt in the bandit-infested jungle; Warren Mitchell as a Welsh reservist, and Irene Handl as Mrs Phillimore, a fading relic from the British rule in India who seems unable to grasp the idea that the sun which was alleged never to set on the Empire has disappeared with some violence down the plug-hole.

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When the war broke out, Leslie used to pray that his father’s ship would get sunk. His prayers ultimately came true when his father’s ship was targeted by a torpedo and he died in the subsequent inferno.

However, it's not all downhill for the boys. There's a British hospital nearby, which means a steady stream of lovely English nurses to attempt to woo, and for Private Brigg there are always the reasonably priced services of local girl 'Juicy Lucy'! Viva Knievel! (1977) Real-life human crash test dummy Evel Knievel plays himself in a ridiculous PG-rated fictional adventure movie. Some drug dealers in… During the war, Leslie would pray, "Make dad's ship sink." His father was subsequently killed when a torpedo hit his vessel; his mother took to her bed with cancer and died shortly afterwards. Leslie and his brothers were sent to various Barnardo's homes, at one of which the superintendent told the boys that their brains would be turned to milk because of all the filthy things they did at night. "He had some kindness, but it was well-buried," Thomas wrote later, when reporting it all with vivid and usually restrained humour. The success of The Virgin Soldiers enabled him to become a full-time writer. He penned more than 30 books and both Tropic of Ruislip and Dangerous Davies, The Last Detective, were adapted for television. His final book was a bitter-sweet romance called Soldiers and Lovers. He also wrote two autobiographies and travel books.Private Brigg is a soldier sent to Singapore during the Malayan Emergency along with a squad of naïve new recruits. There he falls for Phillipa Raskin, the daughter of the regimental sergeant major. He shot to fame after his debut novel The Virgin Soldiers, published in 1966, sold four million copies. He was a naturally opportunistic Fleet Street journalist, capitalising on everything including his own misfortunes. When a spy cut his wrists to avoid capture and was taken to a London hospital, Thomas was already there as a patient and was therefore the only journalist who could report on his condition. But his independent writing was proceeding apace. He was commissioned by the BBC to write A Piece of Ribbon, an army detective story set in Malaya. He did talks on Woman's Hour. His first published book, This Time Next Week (1964), about his life at Barnardo's, remained continuously in print long after some of his later novels had slipped out of sight. Thomas married his second wife, Diana Miles, in 1970. She survives him, as do their son, and the daughter and two sons from his first marriage, in 1956, to Maureen Crane, which ended in divorce. Nonetheless, all he ever wanted was to be called up which eventually happened as he ended up in the Royal Army Pay Corps. Starting in 1950, he lived in Singapore for 18 months, where he gathered all manner of hilarious stories and experiences.

Eventually Brigg and his remaining friends are about to embark for home. The final scene has them shouting the name of a laundryman, whom Brigg has mistakenly shot in the hand in an earlier episode, a certain Fuk Yew. It symbolizes their relation to Malaya and Malaya to them, when the tailor responds with the appropriate hand signal, using his damaged hand.

Even as he was very successful as an author, he continued working casually as a journalist and was a familiar presence on television and radio. I wear his medals, the three medals I got myself for no particular distinguished service and my OBE and, when I walk, Diana says that I clank. I try to keep a serious face, but I look so lugubrious that it looks as though I am about to die.” Most Read After a full two years spent in the sweltering heat of the jungle already, this isn't what any of the boys were hoping to hear and it's not long before there are a few tears of frustration shed. Their situation is made all the worse by the continued presence of Sergeant Wellbeloved, and before long the arrival of a new Lieutenant - a man who even describes himself as "a bit of a shit". Writer Leslie Thomas revisits his Malayan war memoirs but this time the result is more akin to “Confessions of a National Serviceman”.

It is a work that tells of life on a sleepy base where the people hardly have to worry about encroachment from the war against the communist guerillas. Some of these he recounted in works such as “The Virgin Soldiers” and also in “In My Wildest Dreams” his 1984 autobiography. In fact, Thomas has said that he got the inspiration for “The Virgin Soldiers” from some sex vow made by some conscript.But the soldiers are not only stripped down in terms of clothing but they are also inexperienced and wanting in matters of death and love. Onward Virgin Soldiers” by Leslie Thomas is a work in which Brigg who was introduced in the previous work has developed and aged. He is still a flawed character but is very much likable and ultimately heroic and humane. His publisher Susan Sandon said: “Leslie Thomas was an immensely popular author with a huge gift for storytelling and a wonderful sense of humour.