3 Para TOXIC Veterans & All That Jazz | Dr Stuart Griffiths

3 Para TOXIC Veterans & All That Jazz | Dr Stuart Griffiths | Bought The T-Shirt #305

Posted on 5 December 20225 December 2022 by Chris Thrall

3 Para, TOXIC Veterans & All That Jazz, features Stuart Griffiths, a world-wide known photographer, film maker and budding saxophonist legend.

3 Para, TOXIC Veterans & All That Jazz | Dr Stuart Griffiths 3 Para

Dr Stuart Griffiths is a veteran of 3 Parachute Regiment and an award-winning photographer. Stuart’s photographs have been published internationally in VICE, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, Observer, Independent & Sunday Times Magazine. His books include, ‘The Myth Of The Airborne Warrior’ and ‘Pig’s Disco’. His new film entitled, Isolation, traces Stuart Griffiths’ extraordinary life.

Transcript from ‘3 Para, TOXIC Veterans & All That Jazz’ podcast

Stuart – Back in 1983 I was learning the Alto-sax and they said, we’ll have you in the band. I said, just like that? He says yes, because you’ve got your parachute wings. When you join the regimental band, you don’t do P-company. You do four weeks basic training and then you go to the academy. I already saw problems just through serving alcohol to these senior nco’s. This world as a paratrooper in 3 Para, was going to be problematic. So I went and had an interview with a band master and he said, have a go on the tenor. I was good on the Alto and baritone. The baritone’s massive and he could probably thought we’ll get him on that because it weighs a ton.

So I went to have a few beers in the NAFI bar in Palace barracks. Then I met this guy from Grimsby from B-Company. I told him I’d just been accepted to join the regimental band and he says, you don’t want to do that. You want to join ‘battling B’, Gypsy platoon, do you know what I mean? Then he started listing who was in the company and there was all these kind of like celebrities from the Para’s TV series. Sergeant Riley, who is now a sergeant major Riley, although they called him Mavis Riley. That was his nick-name.