Picking Up the Brass

It's 1985, The Smiths are in the charts and Maggie Thatcher is in No10. Eddy Nugent's in Manchester, he's 16 and he's slowly going out of his mind with boredom. So what does he do? He joins the British Army.

Overnight, he leaves the relative sanity of civvie street and falls headlong into the lunatic parallel universe of basic training: a life of press ups, boot polish and drill.

Gradually, he finds his feet and settles down to life as a soldier. There's still plenty of press ups, boot polish and drill to occupy him, but he finds time for beer, girls and other bad behaviour.

Andy McNab he isn't.


Picking Up The Brass is a hilarious, riotous and FHM-approved look at what life was like for the vast majority of young men who joined the British Army in the Eighties. 

As a young recruit Eddy travels through the drinking, swearing and sex-obsessed world of our nation's finest. It takes him from basic training in Harrogate and on to Aldershot and the rum soaked shores of Belize. Written by two ex-soldiers, Ian Deacon and Charlie Bell, and closely based on their own experiences, the book captures the unique aspects of the British military sense of humour, through the language of 'Squaddie Speak'. 

A must for anyone who has served, Anyone who is planning to serve or anyone who has ever thought, "Surely everyone in the army isn't trained to kill people with a toothpick?"


"Laugh out loud funny", Soldier Magazine