大象传媒

This story is taken from a manuscript by Lawrence Travers Dorins, and has been added to the site with his permission by Bruce Logan. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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War.Sept.1939

I joined the 208th. Field Coy. , R. E. on my 19th birthday, 5-6-1939. I was due to enter the Militia in 1.940. In Aug. 1939, I went to the Div. camp at Swingate near Dover for two weeks.

On Friday, the first of September, after work, I was sitting on a seat near the
Oval, talking to Rosemary when a member of my unit came past and told me to report with full kit to the drill hall as soon as possible. We were near the bus stop so Rosemary caught the bus to Battle and I caught the local bus home. At home everyone was apprehensive. What had been feared for so long seemed much nearer. By the time I had eaten, put on my uniform and packed my kit it was getting dark so we put the light on, only to hear an excited warden shout, "Put that light out." This, as my mother was shortening my army trousers, a job finished by candlelight. At about nine I left the house and caught a bus to Bohemia and walked from there to the Catholic Concordia Hall which was now our drill hall. At the hall there was confusion and we just stood about until late at night when we were transferred by lorry to our HQ, a drill hall in Seaside Road in Eastbourne. After some time billets were found for us in nearby boarding houses and I found myself sharing a double bed with two of my friends in St. Aubyns Road.

On Saturday we reported to the drill hall which was just around the corner. This was the HQ. of the 208th Field Coy. R.E., part of the 44th. Division T.A..

At the drill hall we met our new section officer, a kindly, elderly man who had obviously been hauled out of retirement at short notice. His uniform had moth holes in it and his tin hat was rusty. It did not boost our confidence. People were worried and anxious, would there be a war and then an immediate onslaught with bombing and gas attacks? We carried our gas masks all the time. On Sunday morning the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, spoke on the radio at eleven o'clock and we knew that the die had been cast. We were at war. The onslaught did not materialize and life went on much as before. We practised drill, learnt how to do various knots, the only one of which I remember is the reef knot. For physical training we ran along the promenade clad in shorts, and army boots with our gasmasks at
the ready.

Sometimes we hired a car to go to Hastings for the evening. Four people would go to the garage to collect it and then drive around the comer to pick up the rest of us. It was dangerously overcrowded and the garage soon found out and refused to hire it to us. Occasionally we went for a drink at the Pier Hotel where they had dancing. Both beer and dancing had had no place in my sin free teens and a little alcohol had quite an effect on me. We had free tickets for the variety theatre and one act was a man whirling what looked like an Argentinian Gaucho's bolas. He asked for a volunteer and after some urging from my mates, I went up. He began by placing three cards between the fingers of each of my outstretched hands, placed a split cork on my nose with three cards in it, and then began to swing the ball round his head at great speed and lengthening the rope so that it came nearer and nearer to me. At first he displaced the cards on my hands, then from the cork and then the cork which he gave to me. Next day I heard two of the Eastbourne lads discussing the show. "That bloke that went up on the stage had strong nerves." Being hit by a metal ball was not the only accident that could have happened to me that night. It's true what they say in the army, never volunteer for anything
.
We stayed in Eastbourne for about a month. While we were there we did some training but facilities were very limited. Our marching and saluting improved and our buttons and boots acquired a military shine. It gave a sense of freedom for some of us who had not been away from home before. A bit like going to boarding school with lots of new friends and experiences. We were still billeted in the boarding house in St. Aubyns Road which was not far from the drill hall so we did not experience the same sort of discipline and restrictions which come with life in barracks. Our officer with the rusty tin hat had disappeared, presumably back into retirement and the command structure seemed rather deficient in numbers. Very few officers or NCOs. Lots of Indians but few chiefs. We had a local officer, Lt. Cooper from Hastings and then a Major, also old, turned up accompanied by his dog.

Meanwhile things were happening at a higher level and we were told that the 44th. Div. was to be split into two and we were now in the 262nd. Field Coy. of the 12th. Div. and were moving to Gravesend.

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