It’s a Dog’s Life
In loving memory
Mike Nicholson MBE
5th November 1943 – 1st October 2026
Mike passed away peacefully at home in the early hours of Thursday 1st October 2026, aged 82.
A Royal Artillery officer who rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, Mike was appointed MBE in the 1979 New Year Honours for organising the Green Goddess fire engines during the firemen’s strike in the late 1970s, when he was stationed at Larkhill, Wiltshire – an honour he always made light of.
Following retirement, and after successful meetings with like-minded ex-military personnel at The Liberal Club in London, Mike formed the company Forces Business Net. He produced a regular printed newsletter listing vacant positions for ex-military job seekers, and later a website of the same name. After finally winding that operation down, in recent years, The Steam Room became the place where he came to let off steam: recollections, opinions, and the letters the newspapers never printed. His writing remains here for everyone to enjoy, with Frank, his dog, as ever, in charge.
From The Steam Room
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Well Behaved Children
With a general distaste for being collocated with other people’s progeny (especially in the pub) it was an immediate disappointment to see three children, accompanied by their mother, take the seats beside me on the train today – 3 August 2018. My mood changed however,…
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Failed Letters to the Media (mostly the Daily Telegraph).
Humanitarian Assistance The Royal Marines (RM), In particular among the UK-Armed Forces, have demonstrated a high degree ofeffectiveness when engaged in Humanitarian operations. In juxtaposition with the desire of politicians tocontinue to commit 0.7% of the Nation’s income to Foreign Aid, the alleged proposal to…
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Saying What You Mean
A Doctor’s Waiting Room rarely offers a wide choice of reading material and recently I found myself obliged to read an ageing copy of Country Life (there is nothing wrong with the publication but it would not feature as a primary choice). As with most…
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Winston Spencer Churchill (WSC) World War II
HMS Hood Sea Trials on the River Clyde Max Hastings’s majestic book – Churchill – Finest Years – certainly led this reader to think again about the conduct of World War II. Although history is open to different interpretations, the author’s views on the British…
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Young Soldier Recruitment
Young Soldiers (25 August 2019) In the context of the recruitment of young soldiers and the operational limitations on their deployment, Charles Holden (Daily Telegraph 24 Aug) made this crucially accurate observation: “Many people under 18 have been failed by the educational system and the…
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Have I lost my sense of humour?
(Sub-Title: Did I ever have a sense of humour – 25 August 2019) Many of us would struggle to find an agreed definition of a sense of humour, after all we laugh at different things stretching from unalloyed joy at seeing someone slip on a…
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Thinking of Others or Mindfulness
(Sub Title: Just Another Rant) Disclaimer. Having already outlived the time allocated to me under Biblical rules I hereby claim the right to wander from the point and to display spells of incoherence. Truth to tell, as the kernel of this particular outburst began to develop other…
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More Random Thoughts Of A Prejudiced Mind
(Sub Title: What can one say? The safe answer to the question ‘what can one say?’ might be to keep schtum. However many will be disappointed to know that such a response would have been entirely out of character – sorry. After some three years of confusion…
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Raven’s British Army
Introduction The process of re-reading The Captain – The Life and Times of Simon Raven has prompted some thoughts. It is a book that merits multiple re-readings if only to understand the references to Greek mythology. Unless otherwise stated the quotations offered below are from the book. There…
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Railways – Call Up The Royal Engineers?
Oldies may recall the halcyon days when General Brian Robertson Late RE (ennobled by Labour Premier Clement Attlee as 1st Baron Robertson of Oakridge) filled the post of Chairman[i] of the British Transport Commission. That said, the General may not have agreed that those railways days…