大象传媒

In August the international situation was deteriorating. Hitler was obviously making his next move, threatening Poland. The German speakers in Dantig were becoming increasing restless and belligerent. On September 1st the Germans invaded Poland with a blitzkrieg 鈥� aircraft bombing and penetration by tanks. The Poles stood no chance. We received our mobilization papers on September 2nd.

On September 3rd which I think was on a Sunday we reported and were checked in. At 11 A.M. we were all, some 600 of us, on parade. The C.O. appeared and stood on a box of some sort, ready to address us. The Adjutant came on parade at the double and whispered to the Colonel who turned to us and shouted 鈥淕entlemen, we are at war with Germany鈥�. So this was it. Immediately an air raid siren sounded. The Adjutant and C.O. had a word and then the Adjutant shouted 鈥� Disperse and reassemble after the all clear. Go to houses in the vicinity鈥� The idiot next to me said 鈥渕y girl lives in Hither Green Lane come with me.鈥� So we ran and ran, it was farther than I expected. We were the only two people about. I protested but he said it was near the Spotted Cow which I knew was still some distance away. We arrived, rang the bell, no answer, then the 鈥淎ll Clear鈥� sounded and we rang all the way back. What stupidity 鈥� but never to be forgotten.

I remember one evening in that first week of September marching with about 20 others down to the Spotted Cow. We were on duty all night 鈥� guards and fire piquet. We were fed on corned beef and mashed potatoes 鈥� oh and pickle. With this happening nightly it must have been a nice little earner for the Spotted Cow. The N.C.O. in charge of the fire piquet decided to go to the lavatory and looked around and said to me 鈥淵ou鈥檙e in charge鈥�. I felt quite pleased but wondered 鈥渨hy me鈥� and if there was an exercise going on. There was a board with orders for the fire piquet so I thought it would be a good idea to read them and clarify the situation. I was reading the details to the other five when the N.C.O. returned and commented that that was a good idea 鈥� 鈥� What鈥檚 your name?鈥�

After a few days we moved to Mill Hill rather a posh residential suburb in North West London. My troop, like the others, I found out later were marched along a road and a billeting officer knocked on doors and detailed small groups mostly twos, threes or fours to the various houses. Presumably it had all been planned before because there seemed to be someone at home in each house. Four of us were billeted and received reluctantly, I thought, by a young man in his mid-twenties. We were to sleep in the dining room under a large table. We took our gear in, were shown where the downstairs loo was, told not to go anywhere else in the house and that was that. It was a strange set up. There was a huge picture, an oil painting on the wall of a middle aged officer in an elaborate dress uniform 鈥� very impressive. There was something very strange about that house. We found later that there was an older brother rarely seen. The younger brother was always there. I thought they weren鈥檛 English 鈥� English not English English if you follow me 鈥� and the oil painting. I heard the sound of a violin and thought it was a record and after a few evenings I met the younger brother in the hall and remarked that I enjoyed the music; by then I had sussed out that it was not a record as it was always a single violin. He said that he was a keen musician, took me into another room and showed me an HMV 鈥� I think, record. Violin solos, including Air on a G String. He was the soloist, Braza, and I had heard him practising. He told me that his family were Serbian, not Yugoslavian, I noted. I asked him about the portrait 鈥� 鈥淢y father鈥� he said. I think he was very shy. One evening he played the Bach 鈥� Air on a G String. I thought that he would become quite friendly but we were soon moved to Gloucestershire. Remarkably after the war, several times I heard the R.A.F. orchestra on the radio: the violin soloist, a star turn, was Braza. Some of the chaps were incredibly lucky with their Mill Hill billets and really treated as members of the family with children and board games and teenaged girls and cocoa! For once I had been unlucky.

We were based at a Church Hall, the guns and motley collection of vehicles on a car park. Lance Corporal Jones鈥檚 butcher鈥檚 van from Dad鈥檚 Army was typical. We spent time, often, at the United Dairies caf茅 at the big roundabout. We were usually hungry and consumed large quantities of chocolate 茅clairs and milk. The staff there were so good to us, we must have made a lot of additional work. The Officers鈥� Mess was upstairs and the volunteer waiters and washers up did very well with the surplus food. One afternoon returning from a route march we saw a newspaper placard 鈥� "HMS Courageous" (one of our big aircraft carriers) "sunk". I think that must have been about September 13th.

The next week we were off to Gloucestershire, to Tetbury via Kemble Junction. I mention Kemble Junction, a very small station at the back of beyond but still there I believe for the Royals! My battery was based at Westonbirt two and a half miles away with the other battery in Tetbury. There were T.A. field and medium regiments around the area, at Chipping Sodbury, Nailsworth and Stroud. The famous Westonbirt girls public/private school was just down the road, near the Arboretum. I slept the first of many times in a stable but the Ritz Hotel of stables. There was a block of new stables with concrete floors and some elaborate narrow drainage channels, all very hygienic, sloping towards the door. There was room for 10 straw palliases 鈥� five a side, when down they covered the floor. I quickly bagged one in the corner. It seemed like a good idea, because I didn鈥檛 want people manoeuvring over me 鈥� on me, more likely, to get to their beds. There was a staircase outside to the left where the sergeant in charge slept, presumably where stable lads were accommodated. The guns, by now all 18 pounders, and the vehicles were at a farm on the Malmesbury Road a few hundred yards away where E troop were billeted in barns. What an upheaval that must have been for the farmer, one barn for eating, and then washing facilities and loos alfresco.

Sadly, those under 19 had been left behind in London. But reservists arrived to make up the numbers. We really had been a very close knit homogeneous unit almost all from the Borough of Lewisham and so many knowing each other from school. We had never met anyone like these reservists and it really was an education. They had never met young men like us and called some of us posh with great good humour. They were mostly miners from Durham, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Lancashire, Yorkshire and Warwickshire. Wise in the way of the world some of them volunteered to be sanitary orderlies, batman, and officers鈥� mess volunteers 鈥� no army catering corps in those days! A great favourite was 鈥淧op鈥� Larrett, a small saturnine sergeant with First World War ribbons so he must have been at least 40, from Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. He looked as if he had spent his whole life in India and much of it he had. He said, 鈥淢y mother said 'Look at your dad. You鈥檙e not going down the mine, you join the army' and I did." 鈥淲hat did you do at the end of your service?鈥� we asked and he replied with a straight face 鈥� 鈥淲ent down the mine!鈥� 鈥淵ou鈥檙e on guard 2 while 4鈥� he鈥檇 say. At dawn he would shout 鈥淲akey wakey, rise and shine, the sun鈥檚 scorching your eyeballs out.鈥� We never discovered whether it was humour or habit. Much respected was Pop 鈥� a real asset. Then there was Bombardier Nelson, tall and dark with a Ronald Coleman moustache, a ladies鈥� man we thought. His mettle showed months later in France. Gunner Geordie Lloyd, a driver, grizzled grey hair and very blue twinkling eyes. He taught us to play Brag and won quite a few pennies in the process. Gunner Goulding was from Herefordshire 鈥� a limber gunner, who could dismantle a breech and reassemble blind folded, a quiet man. Months later Geordie Lloyd said to me, 鈥淲e got on well didn鈥檛 we? At first we thought you talked like f-----g officers and wondered how we鈥檇 get on with these f-----g college boys.鈥� They looked after us although some of us were N.C.O.s after a few months service and we were half their age.

We did lots of route marches, often to the lovely old town of Malmesbury via a village called Shipton Moyne, sometimes jogging for a while. We were being hardened! There was a pub called the 鈥淗unt on the Cat and Custard Pot Day鈥� in Shipton Moyne with a graphic sign with a cat with its head in the Custard Pot 鈥� it was always called just the Cat and Custard Pot. They sold very potent scrumpy 鈥� a really strong and possibly home made cider. One evening there was a phone call - 鈥淲ould we please collect six soldiers who were the worse for wear?鈥�. Some of the reservists who were beer drinkers had drunk too much cider and were quite incapable, stretched out in a line on the wide grass verge at the side of the road. They were unceremoniously dumped in the back of a lorry and taken back to Westonbirt. How they had their legs pulled 鈥� these hard drinking men of the world! I can鈥檛 remember if there were any repercussions. On another occasion a 15 cwt overturned on a bend. Six in the back and two in the front. No one was injured because the truck was on its side on a rising slope and the six underneath were shocked but ok.

To relieve the monotony, an Avro Anson crash landed nearby and we had to provide a 24 hour guard to keep the public at bay.

Roughly once a week we used the public bar of the neighbouring Hare and Hounds, really a small country hotel where the officers were billeted and mixed with the locals. We made half a pint of bitter, 4d, last a long time and usually after an hour or so had another until we found that seven pence (nearly 3p) a pint was better value. The company was entirely engaged in various rural activities, farm labouring with various specialities like the pigman and a few who worked in the famous arboretum just down the road. So we discovered agriculture to add to our knowledge of coal mining. Occasionally we got a lift into Tetbury and had sausage and chips and tea in the old market hall 鈥� on stilts, on columns - where the WVS had opened a canteen which was well patronised as the other battery in the regiment were all ensconced nearby. Met my old friend Stan Garnham - infants, junior and grammar school 鈥� there as a volunteer to help the ladies. Usually a long walk back to Westonbirt 鈥� two and a quarter miles and freezing cold as fine snow settled on the branches of trees and froze and then more snow settling and freezing until the branches broke under the weight. Sometimes a whole tree would fall and we sent working parties out to clear roads.

One of my friends, Richards, had a contact in Tetbury, a solicitor in an old grey house at the bottom of the high street and he used to take three of us to tea on Sundays. I remember the delicious ham. We were made very welcome but the lady of the house was keen that he should bring different friends so that she could spread the hospitality. Once a fortnight we went to Bristol with soap and towels 鈥� mostly grey - via Chipping Sodbury where there was another artillery regiment as there was also at Nailsworth and Dursley. Hot showers!! in the public baths 鈥� what luxury.

We did a firing camp at the School of Artillery in Larkhill on Salisbury Plain. We were congratulated 鈥� all went well 鈥� surely it wouldn鈥檛 be long before we went to France. I remember so well that there was a bombardier who always had to be physically manhandled to get him out of bed at reveille. He was always quite unconscious. He was carried outside in his bed and we went to breakfast. There had been a few flakes of snow during the night and it started again quite heavy while we at breakfast. There in bed, covered in snow was the victim fast asleep. Every body fell about laughing and we replaced the bed in the hut. After a while we roused him 鈥淕ood God鈥� he said 鈥渢he snow鈥檚 be coming through the roof!鈥�

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