- Contributed byÌý
- Harold Pollins
- People in story:Ìý
- Harold Pollins
- Location of story:Ìý
- Kent
- Background to story:Ìý
- Army
- Article ID:Ìý
- A2209303
- Contributed on:Ìý
- 17 January 2004
 Pte Harold Pollins as a new recruit in the Queen's Royal (West Surrey)Regiment at Maidstone July 1944. Note the haircut.
Down to the bone
By Harold Pollins
In the late summer of 1944 I was at an Infantry Training Centre in Maidstone, Kent. It was soon after D-Day and the only thing that bothered us, apart from the training itself, were the V-1s, the doodle-bugs, in whose flight path we were living. We used to watch them coming over, and sometimes we saw fighter planes trying to shoot them down.
Our company suddenly got orders to move, to leave the camp at Maidstone. We landed up on the coast, near Folkestone, in a tented camp which had been used by troops who had been waiting to go to France on or after D-Day. We understood that we were taking their place in order to deceive any German spy planes into thinking that the troops had not moved.
We continued out training as usual including route marches through the deserted town of Folkestone. Being under canvas was not too bad as the weather was beautiful.
I suffered from my feet so I went sick. Now, being on detachment we did not have a medical officer. Instead, one of the recruits, a failed medical student, was given the job of acting as MO. I went to see him. He looked at my feet and said something about hard skin. So he started paring away with the appropriate instrument. After a time he stopped and looked up. ‘I think I’ve come to the bone,’ he said.
Fortunately he hadn’t. His lack of medical knowledge meant that he didn’t recognise the various layers of skin that he’d gone through. My feet healed up but I didn’t bother to go sick with them again.
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Message 1 - Down to the bone,
Hello Harold,
Back on line and trolling I found your story and as usual had a good laugh. It is so typical of the forces at any time, M.O. failed definitely a good one. I hope you had your small kit properly packed as was regulation on such occasions, I could picture it as I read it. It was not Blacksmith failed and he thought he was cutting back to fit a shoe, good job he did not try to nail your boot back on.
Keep them coming Harold as we have to make up for all those "hundreds" of false stories that are supposedly arriving, it is a good job we can laugh at ourselves isn't it.
Frank.
Ìý
Message 2 - Down to the bone
Posted on: 17 January 2004 by Harold Pollins
Dear Frank
Many thanks for your kind message. I hope you had a good Xmas. I spent it with my married daughter and the grandchildren. I got a juicer and have used it to make carrot juice - I've got to lose some weight, alrthough I've been in a slimming diet on and off since 1942.
I also read your latest item with much interest but I reckon I'm running out of reminiscences. My latest piece about the blitz had no humour in it. I suppose I could write about my cousin who got the George Medal for bravery during the blitz.
Advice please. How do I click on to the pigeon-hole?
Harold
Ìý
Message 3 - Down to the bone
Hello Harold,
What is it you ask, if it is your own Pigeon hole you just put the mouse on the message ie;- your top story in pigeon hole is Major TT Haslam put arrow on it click and wait.
If you mean to leave messages in someone elses Pigeon hole go to the bottom of the box and click on "Leave Message" an empty box comes up put in your own heading then write message and post.
You can read anyones pigeon hole by bringing up their personal page and clicking on any story on there. I run up and down the various forums by using the arrows in the tool bar at the top. Once you start to run through a thread you can go back or forth as many times as you like.
That all sounds far more complicated than it is but you will get the hang of it.
All stories do not need to be amusing it is the personal experience that comes through and most experiences have some humour in them even if it is against ourselves. It is those touches that make the difference between fake postings and genuine ones and usually there is a lot of humour in people of your belief they have had it so hard that a laugh was the only relief.
I felt I had come to the end of my stories but other postings suddenly trigger long forgotten memories so I still have things to tell.
Diet? why, at our age eat drink and die with two girls in your arms the only way for an old soldier to go.
Frank.
Ìý
Message 4 - Down to the bone
Posted on: 18 January 2004 by Harold Pollins
Frank
Many thanks for your suggestion about getting to the pigeon-hole. It works OK.
I take your point about thinking up new stories. Actually I've been doing research on Jewish casualties in the blitz. So far have found three particular incidents where largish numbers of Jews were killed. One was in Stoke Newington, NE London, where 173 were killed in a shelter. This is a Jewish area of residence and about a third of those killed were Jews. Then in April 1941 a Jewish girls' club in west London was bombed and 27 were killed. The worst was in the east end of London, a najor area of Jewish residence, where the last V2 on London fell on a block of flats and over 100 Jews were killed including some servicemen on leave. Coincidentally that bomb fell in a street in which my paternal family lived for a time around 1900.
Harold
Ìý
Message 5 - Down to the bone
Posted on: 19 February 2004 by Harold Pollins
Frank
Hope you are well.
My married daughter and her two children came to see me today. Very pleasant. She is organising a party for my 80th birthday to be held at the college where I used to teach. She came to take my photo to be placed on the invitations, I think. I hope the party won't be too grand.
Next month I shall be going to the Isle of Man to visit my son and his wife. They are both nurses. I decided to get travel insurance, to cover cancellation, delays, or loss of luggage. I did it on the phone, I was quoted £11 and in answer to a list of questions stated honestly that I had had a heart attack seven years ago as well as being 79 years old. The person I was talking to said she had to consult the underwriters and I was temporarily anxious about that. But she quickly came back on the phone and said there would be no increase in the charge. Quite good that.
Trying to think of other stories for the website but so far no luck. Perhaps I'm in need of a break to think about it.
Harold
Ìý
Message 6 - Down to the bone
Harold,
It has been a busy time as I am now on a new set of computer courses, the certificates are piling up, it is just like being in school again.
My 75 birthday was Thursday. They gave me a surprise party that I knew about and a White Rolls Royce to the country Hotel complete with Chauffeur that I did not know about. Twenty four of my immediate family were there and my two year old grandson gave me my presents then helped open them. I am afraid when it came to the speech I was a bit choked up seeing all those happy faces. I was thinking if a first class surgeon had not been at the BMH to put me back together when they finally got me across the desert none of it would have happened. It is a very sobering thought that future generations depend on a lucky break. I begin to wonder if the future is ordained.
It was a great party and I think I got home OK, I do remember being poured into a car and waking up in my own bed, if we cannot have one bash a year life would not be worth living would it.
I do almost everything on computer and by phone now, we have booked a holiday in Scotland without going near a travel agent and I use my own insurers for everything they never quibble. It is the best policy to be truthful when doing the insurance and I tell it as it is, as I said they never even blink.
I have kept up with your stories when I have done my fast in and out on the site to keep up. I always try to answer any mail but there are not enough hours in the day. Do you think we will ever get to retire Harold, I am beginning to doubt it.
Enjoy your 80th and enjoy your family as I do mine. You will find that by reading the stories coming into the site it prompts your brain to remember things long buried, I have sketched out a couple of outlines but did not publish while we were being told only true warriors had any right to be on here. Some people thought the millions of civilians should not be here, I and a vast majority disagree, every one who went through those years has a right to be on this site. Keep publishing and please keep in touch,
Regards Frank.
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