大象传媒

LOOKING BACK 1940

Looking back to the years I spent working in the canteens providing meals for the men billeted on the site of a tiny village named 鈥楤runtingthorpe鈥� Nr. Leicester.

I had been sent to this camp to try to iron out a few problems that had occurred.

It appeared that the previous manager had not completed the necessary forms in order to get the weekly rations for the men.

I was taken to this camp by my supervisor for Barkers who were responsible for the catering. On getting out of the car I was roughly handled by one of the men who demanded to know what the 鈥榖lankety, blank鈥� was for dinner tonight.

Adding that it had better not be that ruddy German sausage. It appeared that as the food permits had not been issued, food was in short supply and the men had been living on luncheon meat commonly known as spam, served at every meal, so I could understand the animosity shown by some of the men.

As the food office was closed there was little I could do, but in order to avoid a near riot I asked my cook to fry the spam in butter. At first hand this caused problems so I suggested that he flour the meat first and this seemed to do the trick.

On opening the serving hatches for the evening meal, one of the men yelled out 鈥淔ish cakes boys鈥� and as nobody seemed anxious to say different, fish cakes it was and everybody seemed pleased.

On another occasion at the same camp we unfortunately ran out of tea and had to rely on supplies of cocoa which being served so often, had the result of making the men feel quite drowsy and going to sleep on the job. The foreman pleaded with me to try and get some tea, so when I heard that the manager of a nearby camp had a good supply, I got on my motor 鈥� bike that I had recently aquired, and set out for Husbands Bosworth.

The manager was quite helpful and let me have three separate bags of tea ( 5lb in each bag). And as he also had a good supply of cigarettes, ( Tenners ) a cheap brand, I purchased three box鈥檚 of loose cigs, with 500 in each box and after a cuppa, I was soon on my way back to camp.

Travelling down the old Watling Street, I was probably showing off and revving up, found myself riding up the opposite bank and ended up in the ditch and the tea mixed with the loose fags joined me.

Thinking that there was no way the men would have tea tonight, I bundled the tea and fags together and went on my way.

Arriving back at the camp, the men thinking that tea was on the way, gave a loud cheer and as there seemed no way out and the girls had the water boiling, I told them to make the tea.

As the tobacco floated to the top we scooped off the ash. In order to avoid the taste of the tobacco, I added some extra sugar. The rest of the broken fags were put on sale at half price and so another awkward situation was avoided.

This story was submitted to the 鈥淧eoples War Site by Rod Aldwinckle of the CSV Action Desk on behalf of EARNEST COTTLE and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the terms and conditions of the site

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