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Way back in 1932 I applied to join the army, and at the medical the doctors tested me carefully ... here, there, cough, so far so good ... and then one doc said, 'I'm sorry, mate, but its no good, I'm afraid I’ll have to fail you'. As I had a terrible stammer, when I asked him why, he said, 'Well, if you was up the Khyber Pass, before you could shout for help, your throat would be cut!', so that was that, and no army for Dicky Brew.

The next six years passed, and I was working as a baker in a biscuit factory and I was seeing a lovely girl called May, whom I married on 20 August 1938, just as the war clouds were gathering, but thanks to good old Chamberlain and his useless bit of paper, we got a year's reprieve. War came to us on 3 September, and on 21 December 1939, we were blessed with our first son, Terry. We were very happy, but the crunch came for us - as it would for thousands - and I had to sign up in my age group, the 24-year-olds, and undergo the same medical that I had in 1932, so I told the doc, 'Sorry mate, but it’s no go', and I explained about my stammer.

He looked at me, up then down, and said 'Bulls---t, you’re A1 now', and enquired in a velvety soft bellow which mob I would like to join, and in all my innocence I said that I would like to join the RASC, as I had been in the bakery trade for ten years, and with a smile he wrote it down.

One fine day ...

One fine day in April, May brought me up my call-up papers, I looked at them carefully, and saw that I had been posted to the 'Somerset Light Infantry'. Well, I had never heard of them, but I read on, and they wanted me to report to Taunton, and my first thought was that I was very lucky to have been posted to the seaside, but my joy was short lived, when it was pointed out to me that although Taunton was in the West Country, I had got mixed up with Torquay.

The great day had arrived, 13 June 1940, Paddington Station 9am, 300 men for the Somerset's, and 300 men for the RAs - they were going to Norton Fitzwarren. What a bloody shambles! Babies crying, wives crying, mother-in-laws laying down the law, as if they had done all this before - 'Do this, don’t do that, don't go here, do go there...' although my mother in law stayed calm throughout, thankfully.

Well, with the goodbyes all over, it was time to start my military life with a 4-hour trip to Taunton, we pulled into the station to the friendly tones, loud and booming, of dear old Frankie Holt, with his green beret, RSM of the depot, and in charge of all parades and our lives. He made us march up to our new quarters, 14 Mount Street, and what a mess it was - 300 men that had never marched before swinging empty suitcases, it seemed very depressing. We had soon dumped our cases, and made our way to the mess for our first meal, and I can still remember it, our first Cornish pasties, peas, potatoes, followed by rice pudding. It went down a treat, as it was the first thing that I had eaten for along time.

After dinner 30 of us was issued with straw mattresses and blankets, and marched down to the Oxford Inn, at the back of the Angel Pub. It was so bleak and dusty, and as we looked about us someone asked where the beds were, the sergeant in charge of us, once he had stopped laughing, just pointed at the floor and left. I can honestly say that no one slept that night, and it’s another reason that I shall never forget 13 June.

The next morning was another complete shambles, as 30 men attempted to wash and shave in just two cold taps, then it was another march back to barracks for breakfast, porridge, one egg, toast and jam washed down with a mug of tea. Then after breakfast came the biggest mess I have ever encountered, the issuing of kit. Major Scott, second in command of the depot was fussing about like an old hen, and all the sergeants that hell could spare were shouting 'WHAT SIZE MAN!!'

They wanted to know everything straight away, what size boots, beret, neck, chest, waist, leg about the only thing that they didn’t ask was how big below! I have often seen it in films, but it can never match the comedy of that day, far better than any Charlie Chaplin film. Then we were sorted into platoons, one of As and Bs, I can still remember them now, Ayliffe, Brome, Brimley, Brew, Bentley, Bridges, Brighton, Board, Brimble, Besant, big Jack Bowen, Taffy Bowen, and Bowen from Bridgwater. I palled up with Jimmy Brighton and Alf Board from New Cross. The next day we had our jabs, and to see the grown men flinch was fairly comical, but the next day some of them were quite ill really, and excused duty for the next 24 hours. Next came the dentist, and I think most of us would rather have gone and fought the Germans there and then.

We had been posted to Nuns' Field by now, and guess what ... real beds, complete with mattresses, although these were more commonly known as biscuits, and with good reason. Our NCOs were Sgt Donnelly, Cpl Chow and L/Cpl Paddington, who, incidentally was quite mad. He was a bully, and he made us run with our gas masks on at the alert. Our Platoon officer was Lt Good who was 6ft 3ins and was absolute bloody murder to march behind, as he had such whopping great strides. Our training was all done by numbers, one stop, two stop, three stop, four, and in two to three weeks we were near perfect, and we were beginning to look like soldiers. We even got equipped with Canadian Ross rifles, though there was no sling, so we had to put them over our shoulders with strong string, and as it was the time of Dunkirk, we only got issued with five rounds of ammunition each, and wherever we went, so did those five rounds! I have not mentioned the drill parades, as they are all just as dull as you would imagine, except for one, in the car park of the Gaumont cinema, where all the townsfolk stood and watched us, and I experienced for the first time a pride in what I was doing.

Things get more serious

One Saturday at about three in the afternoon, our lives for the first time took on a more serious role, we got confined to barracks, and the flap of all flaps was on, as someone had reported a German sub in the Bristol channel, so us highly trained rookies was sent down to Porlock Weir to deal with it. It was taken very seriously, and we were each issued with ten extra rounds of ammunition each, and told to dig in, two men to a trench, the only trouble with that order was that the beach was a pebble beach and every time you dug into it, it collapsed. Eventually orders came round to sleep, one man at a time, the other to keep watch, and what a long night it was, cold, hard, and uncomfortable, and after all that it turned out to be a false alarm after all. I have often been back to the beach with my family, and I grin a little grin to myself, as they were happy days really.

After all that excitement we were excused parades as we were all dead tired, until we received orders to move only 14 miles away, to Dunster Beach. We were given the holiday makers huts to live in, and our hut had the name 'Nobby' over the door (which I have still got over my shed door), seven of us lived in there for three and a half months, we spent our time digging trenches right along the coastline up to Blue Anchor. Once a week they gave us a 5-mile route march, which gave us no trouble at all as by then we were all fit men, but even so if you got behind Lt Good, you would still suffer with his giant strides.

Leave

It was at this time that we got some good news, 48 hours leave at the weekend, ten men at a time. We picked names out of the hat for the first ten to go, and I was lucky enough to get one. There was three of us for London, so come half one Friday we got the train from Taunton and had a good leave at home, and it was bliss. We had decided in advance to catch the midnight milk train from Paddington, and we met up and got on the train, with no problems, and arranged for the guard to wake us up before Taunton. We all settled down for the ride back and dreamt of the ones we were leaving behind again, and I woke to warm rays of sunlight gently coming through the train window. The silly git had forgotten to wake us up, it was full daylight, and we were supposed to be back in camp at half nine.

The next stop was Newton Abbot, and by Christ what a mess it was, as it had been bombed the night before and we were a bleeding long way from Dunster. We contacted the transport officer on the platform and explained our troubles, and he phoned Taunton for us. We jumped on the next train back and got to the depot at midday, where RSM Holt arranged for us to go back on the ration truck, and finally at half two we got back to Dunster. We got taken straight to the company office on arrival where CSM Harvey listened to us patiently, and then sent for Major Ludlow, but as we had informed the RTO. At Newton Abbot we were let off.

May and Terry, and my mother in law got evacuated down to me, and they got lodgings in the village of Dunster, in the house of a gardener called Tom, who worked in nearby Dunster castle which was owned by the Lutterell family, as it had been for many years. The people of Dunster was angels to us, as We were their own regiment, the vicar, Ron Ballerina, and his helpers used to fuss over us, tea was only a penny, beans on toast three pence, all of it made us feel so at home. I have often gone back, as my mate Johnny Martin used to live in Minehead , but I'm sorry to say that he passed away in 1991, well all good things come to an end.

'R' Company

In October we were posted back to Sharford camp, where we first of all had bayonet practice, and what a laugh it was, even the instructors had to laugh, but we all passed somehow. Shortly after all that we were summoned, and told that we were being posted to our battalions, I got posted to the fourth, and it was to be my home for the next five and a half years, we were known as 'R' company and shipped off to Great Chesterford in Essex.

It was now November 1940 and there was plenty of air raids, so our journey took a little longer than expected, just over eight hours, when we eventually arrived it was nine at night, but they still rounded us up, formed us up and counted us up, just in case someone had done a runner, as London wasn't all that far away. They marched us for a mile to a tented camp, and my god it was awful, even though it was dark all we could see was water, our tent had a whacking great pool of water outside it, inside it, and all around it. The staff packed us off to a dining tent, and we were so cold and wet that I cannot remember the meal, talk about Fred Karno’s army, this was the worst!!

The next morning outside our tents was a pond, covered in a sort of green slime. We wasn’t really sure what we had done to deserve this, but eventually we settled down to life under Sgts Pike, Fiander, and Mole, and Csm Thurston. I wrote to my wife, May, and told her that it was a really nice village, so she made her way down, and managed to get lodgings, but the landlady was a cow, she pinched May’s rations time and time again, so rather than cause trouble, she went back home. One of the few things that we did together while she was there was visit the local pub, where they sold new bread for two pence a slice, and they had a bowl of dripping on the bar for dipping into, it reminded us both of times past, and of home.

Our stay there was a short one, thankfully, and we were posted to Shorncliffe barracks. I got left behind on rear party, and when I caught up with them, I found they had got me into the married quarters, which was a good thing, but there wasn’t any beds, which was a bad thing, so we were on the floor again, which to be honest we were getting fairly used to by now.

The next day was one which I'll never forget, more for it’s stupidity, than for anything else. It was November 1940, and the bloody Germans were still roaming around the skies of the South-east, looking for trouble, but forgetting that, or not caring about them, RSM Holley called a drill parade, and while we were all stood there like targets on the range, two sodding great Messerschmidts came roaring over the fence. They probably couldn't believe their luck, because they didn't open fire, and if they came back, well, I for one was deeply under cover by then! So there weren’t any large parades after that.

'B' Company

I was posted to 'B' company a short while later that, in which I stayed for the rest of my army days and I was lucky that I was able to pal up with my mates Shallard, Clements and my dear pal Roy 'Mucky' White, I've never been so close to a pal as I was to him, he even got wounded three times with me, and we still keep in touch to this day.

We were up on the hills of Folkestone, and our HQ was the Valiant Sailor, it was very much the front line in those days, as Hitler could have come over at any time, so we took it all very seriously. Our job was to stand to at sunrise and sunset, and to search the buses from Deal. We were allowed out one night in ten, so we went down to Folkestone to see a film, having to push past people in full kit in a complete blackout was a bit of a trial, and the locals would sometimes get a bit fed up with us, but we couldn't help it.

Soon enough we were off again, to Deal this time, staying in miners' cottages, with, as usual, no beds. It was very nice there, and the people were very sociable, so I told May to come and stay, and I picked her lodgings this time, and it turned out that the landlady's sister was my sister's neighbour in London - its strange how things turn out. We had some dances in the local hall, and at one I recall, our Colonel, Bobbie Bakewell, was holding our son when, horror of horrors, he peed all over him. It took a long time to live that one down.

Bombed out

Our main job at Deal was to be the construction of the beach defences. The work was hard, but it passed the time away. We built the defences all the way from Deal beach to Folkestone, including the St George golf course. May went home again as the Germans began shelling Deal, as well as Dover, and she reckoned that it was safer in London. I had a seven-day leave coming, but it was passed over in favour of a 48-hour pass, so on 4 March 1941, I went home to a new house, and May had worked very hard to make it nice for me to come home to, and the hours began to pass very quickly.

Three days after I came back the Germans dropped land mines on the east of London, and one fell next door to May, it killed our neighbours, and destroyed most of the street, if I had of had my weeks leave it would of got us too, but luckily May had gone round her mums for company, as she was unwell. I heard about it in a telegram saying 'House Wrecked, All Safe, Lost All'. I applied for a 48-hours compassionate leave, and Major Roberts said I could go, but that I must bring back proof that our house had been bombed. When I saw our house it had been razed to the ground, we had lost everything and it was heartbreaking.

When I went to Plaistow police station, and explained that I needed proof of the bombing, the desk sergeant said 'Good God, it was a good job you was away from home'. Needless to say he gave me the police headed note paper saying that the house had indeed been totally demolished. When I got back to Deal I was marched straight into the company office, placed the proof on the desk, saluted and walked out, without a word. The strange thing was that a couple of nights later Bath was bombed and half the Battalion was Bathonians, and they all got their leave without a word said.

Our next stop on our tour of Britain was East Studdal, a quiet little place, there was three little Nissan huts which came, unusually, with beds. The local egg farm let us buy what we wanted, and a very old grocery shop sold tins of fruit and corned beef, so when we got a day pass we were well loaded, we even got daffs, which grew by the roadside.

Summer came and we were posted to Lenham, near Maidstone. We were in tents Mucky, Jockey Archer, Eddie Old, Pete Hole, Shaky Adams, Bill Tricky and me. L/Cpl Chick Fry also shared with us, and one night he came home drunk, opened the tent flap, and peed all over us thinking he was in the toilet! What we never called him!

Richard Henry William Brew

2 August 1915 - 13 August 1997

For what happened next click on … visit from Monty, serious training, D-Day, fighting in Europe

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