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When you talk to Sid Read it is not long before he comes out with some episode of his service in the Royal Engineers. “Why don’t you write or record some of your experiences for In Touch”, he was asked . . .and asked . . .and . . .
then one day, Sid took his tape recorder to his summer house and we now have both the tape and, thanks to his daughter Pauline, a full transcription (less a few deleted expletives!) of his “Memories of the Second World War”.

This story is submitted to the People’s War site by a member of Market Harborough Branch, Royal British Legion on behalf of Sid Read and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Read fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Here, just as he spoke, is how his story begins,

Hello to all and everyone that knows me, I have been asked to talk about my experiences through the war.

I was a militia boy. I don’t know how many people today would know what that means. I had to go to Ullverscroft Road in Leicester by train from where I lived, to register and then I had to wait until I was called up. I can remember that letter arriving with O.H.M.S. on it and I shall never forget it - you can’t forget these things because I knew what that meant to me. It meant that I’d got to say goodbye to my wife and my little boy. I adored them both but there was nothing I could do about this. I had to leave them.

I went to Derby where I was supposed to go to join, and when I got to Derby they told me that I had been posted to the Royal Engineers which I served in. We went from Derby to Castle Donnington where I did my training and after I had finished my training at Castle Donnington I was posted to 162 Railway Construction Company. They were stationed just outside Derby at a place called Melbourne. I joined the company and we stopped there for quite a while and then we moved down to Abbots Leigh just outside Bristol. We were sent then to work in St. Phillips goods yard in Bristol railway station. Because it had been knocked about so badly by the German bombs we had to try to clear it all up, which we did. We spent quite a lot of time there, and from there the company was posted to West Weybridge and I was in Weybridge when they told me that I had been posted out of the company and I had got to go to a place called Woolmer just outside Longmoor.

When I got there they told us that they were making a company up and we were going to be posted out of the country. We didn’t know where we were going to go or what was going to happen to us but then they said, “You’ve got to go to the Quartermaster’s Store and pick up all your K.D. kit.” Well we knew then when we got this kit that we were going out to the Middle East, somewhere where the fighting was taking place at the time.

I was given a fortnight’s leave to come back and say goodbye to my wife and little lad. At the time my wife had had a little daughter and I can remember having to say goodbye to her with my little boy hanging on her skirt and the little baby in her arms, and that was the last time I saw them for two years.

Further instalments of Sid’s Story will be added to this site.

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