Pair of British Army issue jungle boots : Corporal R S McB Perry, 17th Gurkha Brigade

Pair of green canvas jungle boots extending to mid calf. The boots have a black rubber sole with a grip pattern of raised horizontal bars and diamonds. The instep bears the manufacturer's details 'FK' within a circle, and 'U.K. REG. 879443 [Size]8 MADE IN MALAYSIA'. A strip of protective black rubber runs across the toe of the boot and extends to each quarter. The boots are fastened with six pairs of riveted eyelets and six pairs of lace hooks, and are complete with their original green cotton laces, which are laced in the configuration used by Corporal Perry during his service in the Malayan Emergency in 1957-1959.

Robert S McB Perry was born at Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, Scotland, in December 1931. When he was four his family moved to England, settling in the village of Little Haywood near Stafford. A mobile film unit screened Alexander Korda's film 'The Four Feathers' in the adjoining village of Great Haywood, c 1940, and inspired Robert with an ambition to join the army and serve in Egypt and The Sudan, as the hero of the film had done. Robert Perry worked as a delivery boy for the local butcher after school and eventually became a butcher himself. In 1948, at the age of seventeen and a half, he met a recruiting sergeant in the village who was looking for men to join the newly formed Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. Knowing that his father would not agree to support his under age enlistment, Robert persuaded his mother to sign the papers and joined the army two weeks later, where he was allocated the service number 22230241. After training in Dorset and Derbyshire as a motorcycle and motor vehicle driver and as a storeman, Craftsman Perry was posted to Egypt in 1949, to join the 80,000 strong British garrison at Suez, fulfilling his childhood dream. He was based at Tel el Kebir, initially as the driver of a military ambulance. Because of his previous experience as a butcher Craftsman Perry volunteered to take over as butcher to fill in for a man who was sick. This was to be a temporary measure, but it lasted seven months. He then returned to transport work, becoming a unit despatch rider, travelling between Tel el Kebir, Ismailia, Ferry Point and Fayed, mostly riding a Matchless BSA motorcycle. He was wounded in the stomach by a grenade thrown at him by disaffected Egyptian locals near Ferry Point, but made a full recovery and returned to England in 1951. He had been promoted to lance corporal in Egypt. He was subsequently posted to the British Army of the Rhine, with the rank of corporal, until 1957, where he was attached to Intelligence as an interpreter. Between 1957 and 1959 Corporal Perry was posted to Malaysia as part of a light aid detachment attached to the 17th Gurkha Brigade during the Malayan Emergency, operating between Pandan and Ipoh. He left the British Army in 1961 but missed the service life. He joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in response to an advertisement aimed at attracting British ex-servicemen to Australia, arriving at RAAF Edinburgh in South Australia in 1965. A serious accident the following year eventually resulted in Corporal Perry being medically discharged in 1967. The method of lacing on the jungle boots issued to Corporal Perry in Malaysia was common to his Gurkha company. The small knot at the top of the boot allowed it to remain securely fastened when the lace was untied at the lower bow, quickly pulled free, knotted below the small knot for security, and then cut off below the knots for use in case of emergency: as a torniquet, for repairs or for self-defence.