Yes, in many homes the Old Year is being watched die and new hopes rise with the prospect of the New Year. One night, walking along a dirt track, Almonds found that it had been mined by the retreating Germans. The only way to hunt them down was to chase and catch up with them, then mount an early morning raid before they could move off at daybreak.

He committed to memory the location, extent and density of the field so that he could warn the advancing Allies. However, it was also renowned for the notorious incident of when Paddy Mayne and his men gunned down Germans and Italians in the officers' mess.Lorna Almonds-Windmill is a former Regular Army Captain who later had a career in the voluntary sector before becoming a Whitehall civil servant. He and a comrade lay low to avoid being caught in crossfire between the Italians and the retreating SAS. Night after night they broke out through the Tobruk perimeter for reconnaissance missions, attack artillery positions or capture prisoners.

In the spring of 2011, Almonds’ gallantry and service medals went on public display for the first time along with a small selection of my other previously unseen Special Forces medals. He then joined the Bristol Police in 1936 and served with them until the outbreak of the Second World War when he reported back to the Coldstream Guards at Pirbright. According to Riley, the boys were all pretty impressed about him having 'smacked' his last CO during an argument, actually knocking him down. While the team concept remained important, each one of them had to develop a sense of their own independence and personal effectiveness.

Later, he made good his own POW camp promise to himself to design and build an ocean-going boat and sail her back to England. The cabin’s Perspex windows were standing up well to the beating of the seas and rain but he was ready to board them up. It was Lorna Almonds Windmill, herself an ex-Army captain, who published a splendid book about her father twelve years ago.