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Back in the United Kingdom the threat of war hung over the nation and many of us were returned to Blighty, ostensibly to help form new units to train the coming Conscript Army; at least, this was the scuttle-but going round the place. However, my posting was to Aldershot, to a working unit and it turned out to be a very fine unit indeed; the work was interesting, the barracks and food good; all this and 30 shillings per week as well. It doesn't sound very much nowadays but when you consider that beer was 4d. (1½p) per pint, a fish supper was 6d. (2½p) and petrol was11½d. (5p) per gallon. That particular petrol was designated R.O.P. which we understood to mean 'Russian Oil Products.'
Why mention petrol? Most of us either owned an Austin Seven or a motorcycle or had shares in one or the other. The places visited were usually Reading (where else but the Mitre pub?), Guildford (the Seven Stars - the only pub in the world I've been thrown out of, but youth and inexperience were to blame there), or Ash, adjoining Aldershot, with its three pubs 'The Bridge', 'The Standard of England' and a third one, the name of which escapes me. Halcyon days! With no worries and no thought for the future, which was about to change every- one's life.
My unit was staffed by soldiers who were top-class Wireless Operators with long experience in India or Pales- tine and the other trades were also men who were 'tops' at their jobs and who could be relied upon to work without some N.C.O. chasing up their behinds (most of the NCOs were commissioned soon after the outbreak of war) -in all a mob where you felt you belonged. Mind you, off duty they were a shower of boozy wasters, including myself, but for all that I never knew a man to miss his duty because of drinking, etc. It was an unwritten law that when required on duty you were always there. We looked on soldiers who, because of a heavy night's boozing, found some excuse to miss parade or duty, with contempt.

During the summer months it was the practice of my Unit to go away from Barracks for four or five days a week; normally we would go away on the Monday or Tuesday and return on the Friday afternoon, these jaunts out mainly to the 'Strong' county (Hampshire to the uninitiated) were financially rewarding as we were paid our ration money in cash before we departed; this was paid at the higher rate of 6 shillings (30p) per day as against the normal 2 shillings and 4d. (12p). We were credited in Barracks; this was like having two pay days and the system we followed was that the driver of the Gin Palace (wireless truck), having the least to do when we arrived at our destination, became the cook and the buyer of our food and the keeper of all the ration money. He would buy and cook our food (and we lived like lords) and on the last day, whatever money was left over, we split amongst us the day we returned to Aldershot.
Our driver was a canny provider and there was always a decent amount left to share out. This bloke could easily have pocketed a lot of the surplus but he was a great believer in the barrack-room code of 'never rob your mates', rob and cheat anyone else, but never your pals. Every morning rolls, bacon, egg and mushrooms; dinner of steak, tomatoes and chips, whilst tea could well be haddock and chips; the memory of it still makes me drool. The beer was good in that part of the county too and' one particular pub, 'The Green Man' was always a calling place. Happy Days! I wonder why food and drink taste so much better when served al fresco? Who can resist a barbecued steak, washed down with a gallon of beer, with the sun shining, birds singing and a lovely glaze coming over one's eyes.
'Be there a man with soul so dead who never to himself hath said, this is the life without a wife and only me in bed!'
A soldier wasn't very high in civilian esteem in those days, in fact we were very often treated like lepers; it often happened that a soldier, who had been taking a girl out, would eventually be invited by her to have tea at her house and, during the visit, would inevitably be asked what he did for a living, when told he was a regular soldier, the temperature dropped to zero and the conversation would become distant and stilted and the atmosphere tense; one could almost read their thoughts "How dare she (the daughter) bring home a common soldier? Has he forced himself on her?" etc., etc.
At this point it was time to go and find your mates and drown your sorrows in a few pints. Another example of the general disgust we were held in by certain strata of the community was when another chap and myself went to Bournemouth. We had two brand new Norton 500 motorbikes delivered to the Unit and with a bit of 'blarney' convinced the Officer concerned with transport that a new machine had to be 'run in' for 500 miles, the oils changed and the machine was then ready to run forever. He agreed, much to our surprise, and it was decided that two runs of about 250 miles at 35 MPH. would do the trick; we got the map out and Bournemouth fitted beautifully for the first run.
Drawing the un-expired portion of our day's rations, in other words our sandwiches from the cookhouse, the tanks full of petrol, we set off; it was a glorious day which made the trip very enjoyable and we eventually reached Bournemouth and decided to have our sandwiches on the beach. We were, of course, in uniform. So, amongst many looks we went on the sands, settled down and proceeded to chomp away. Whilst we were eating, an elderly civilian of the Poona type, arrived on the scene and in no uncertain terms ordered us off.
"Common soldiers, IN UNIFORM, are not allowed on the beach; get off and get back to where you came from."
To say we were shattered was putting it mildly.
"We are not doing any harm, or interfering with anybody," we remonstrated "why should we go and who the hell do you think you are?".
With no more ado he went and then came back with a policeman who said he was sorry but the beach was for residents and tourists only.
“Be good lads and disappear before I book you."
We went, flaming, and got out of the town and finished our interrupted meal. This is absolutely true.
Seven years after this I was married and my fiancée, as she then was, had booked our honeymoon for - yes, Bournemouth. It was a very different place then, in January 1946; barbed wire along the beach, the pier was cut in two, and when I walked on the beach then nobody told me to 'get off' - six years of war had entirely changed all that.
In the past few years I've been back to Bournemouth several times, I like it very much and the atmosphere bears no resemblance to the pre-war days.
When we got back to Aldershot and told anybody who would listen about our summary dismissal, they just laughed and said 'what did you expect in that haven of retired Colonial Civil Servants and Indian Army Colonels.' No wonder we got a Labour Government after the war.

The war clouds were gathering and the Munich Agreement may have satisfied the populace at large, but we felt that war wasn't too far away, especially when the grape-vine reported that in addition to 'A' reservists reporting for training, 'B' and 'D' reservists were also to be called up.
The recall of 'B' reservists was unusual; they were men who were completing the Reserve part of their 12-year engagements and were liable to re-call for training, but 'D' reservists were men who had signed on for reserve service after their 'B' reserve and would normally only be called up if the Army was mobilized.
Well, the Army hadn't been mobilized but they were to report for training in two groups, the first group being called up from June 15th to August 15th and the second group from August 15th. These 'D' reservists were, in the main, much older men and an awful lot of them hadn't served in the Army for upwards of fifteen years; they just kept on signing on the Reserve and drawing money for no effort. I hasten to add there was nothing wrong with this, it was just the way the system was and they were perfectly entitled to get what they could out of the Army, but the last thing they ever expected was to be called up to honour their commitment. However, they did do so, we never had a single absentee, but the question was, when they had been kitted out, what was to be done with them?
A very big proportion of them had trades which were now obsolete, or in a few cases, obsolescent; we had coppersmiths, tinsmiths, saddlers, farriers and horse-transport drivers and when one considers that the Army had been mechanised the last three trades weren't of much use.
The others were men who had left the Army when we were still part of the Royal Engineers (RE Signals - we didn't become a separate Corps until 1920.) So you see there was a problem - what were these men to be trained as? An awful lot were in their forties and hadn't soldiered since the Great War. A bit more about the reservists later.
Also around this time, something was going to happen to the Army that hadn't happened since 1919. We were going to have a Conscript Army in addition to the regular forces! Speculation was rife about this and on July 15th, I939, the first batch of 'militia men' -lads of 20 years of age -were due to arrive. Poor souls! Truly everybody felt sorry for them, called up for six months training, which was to end up as seven years for those who survived the coming war.
The Army made a complete fool of these lads; we, the common soldiery, were forbidden to speak or mix with them, other than on duty, and to make sure that they would be recognised as militia, they were given a walking-out uniform of beret, shirt, blazer, flannel trousers and army boots! They looked utterly ridiculous and the poor blokes must have felt dreadful in that clownish outfit, looking like a collection of Spanish onion sellers.
The Army tried to make out that they were a would-be elite Corps and made a self- conscious, dispirited crowd out of them instead; if they had integrated the blokes and uniformed them like a soldier should be, a bit of leg-pulling might have taken place but we would have had harmony, instead of two armies. A lot of these militia lads were very clever and many rose to high rank in the Army.
To get back to the reservists, as previously said, the Army truly didn't know what to do with them as so many had redundant trades, so the usual thing happened; they decided to smarten them up by drill, parades, kit lay-outs, white-washing etc. etc. ad nauseum, until at last these aged warriors struck. As I recall it, the final straw came one Saturday, when they were to be drilled and have a kit inspection as if they were 18 year-old recruits. And struck was what they literally did; a quick meeting was arranged and the ring-leaders passed the word round to the other reservists - thus far, and no further, we will refuse to do any more, until proper trade training is instituted -and they all agreed.
We, the regular troops, knew nothing about this and for the good reason that they did not want us incriminated in any refusal to work, because of the consequence that a Regular would suffer, so they got themselves on parade and, when given orders, just stood there doing nothing. No cheek, no insults, just a silent protest. NCOs and WOs ordered, cajoled, threatened; officers did ditto and when it became apparent that they intended to stick to their guns, we, the Regulars, were rounded up and put into our Barrack Rooms on the supposition that we'd all join in. Not a chance. None of us would have done so, because firstly it was their complaint and, secondly, it was mutiny as defined by the manual of Military Law.
Now, before the action took place, one of the reservists telephoned the 'Daily Mirror' about what was to happen and a reporter turned up but was stopped outside the Barracks. Somehow he got his story and we read an account of it in the paper. Meantime a call had been sent out to an Infantry Battalion to come to our place and act as a guard over the dissidents, but when the Battalion was told why they were wanted they refused to come and co-operate against fellow reservists. I don't know what the outcome of that one was, for other troops never arrived. The place was crawling with Red Caps (Royal Military Police) but presumably on orders they did nothing, thank goodness, or there would have been real trouble.
After a while we were allowed out of our Barrack Room and found that the place was back to normal; apparently a High Officer addressed them and they were assured that there would be no more stupid treatment and agreed that they had been brought from their homes to do training as tradesmen and to get the feel of a mechanised Army which was so different from the one they had known. A mistake had been made and if they would like the weekend off, they could have it! So ended an episode that should never have happened had a little thought gone into the problem of a short-term call-up. To their eternal credit the reservists never put the screw on in any way, or spoke to any reporters about it, and apart from the second-hand information that the 'Mirror' reporter got, nothing else was ever published to my knowledge.

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