Gerry Rogers was born in London in 1936 and his family moved to Wolverhampton when he was a child. He is a keen artist and has been since a young age. After working in silk screening for a few years Rogers joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) for his National Service. He was briefly stationed on the Isle of Wight before being selected to go to Christmas Island to participate in Operation Grapple. While on Christmas Island Rogers created artworks to represent and remember his experiences. After Christmas Island he worked in several jobs before settling as an independent artist with his own studio. Rogers and his wife Pauline have had a long and happy marriage and have two daughters. They currently live in Guildford.
Interview extracts
Description
Gerry Rogers joined the RAF through National Service and was selected to go to Christmas Island to participate in Operation Grapple. While on Christmas Island, he composed works of art to represent and remember his experiences. In this clip, he recalls a novel way of cooling beer. This anecdote is supported by another veteran, Alan Jacobs, who also claimed that the NAAFI put the decimal point in the wrong place when submitting the beer order. The NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes) is a company that runs leisure facilities for British military personnel.
This is a short extract from an in-depth interview. Gerry Rogers was recorded for the Oral History of British Nuclear Test Veterans project in 2024. The interviewer was Joshua Bushen. This project was run in partnership with National Life Stories and the full interview can be accessed at the British Library.
Transcript
The only other place that was built first was the NAAFI, because of the, protecting all the beers and stuff. The laugh about the NAAFI was they used to sell Pegasus beer, all in tins, never cold, Pegasus beer and Allsopp’s, we called it All Slops, it was horrible. Anyway, but they didn’t sell much of that, so one night we heard bulldozers, and they buried it. They dug a big hole, buried all these cans of All Slops. It was buried and forgotten, they thought, and a few days later, this fellow’s going out there, digging it.
[ends at 0:00:37]
