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I volunteered to the fleet air arm in 1944 as my brother had been in this service, he came with me to help me enlist, unfortunately the air arm were not recruiting so next I tried the air force, then the navy and finally the army, and to my disgust I could not enlist in any of the forces, on my return home I waited to hear from any of the services and two weeks later I was sent my call up papers to go down the mines in Mexbourgh in Yorkshire as a ‘Bevan Boy’.

I spent two years in the worst and most dangerous conditions I could ever have imagined, using antiquated machinery, in freezing conditions, often in the pitch dark after power failures, struggling to work or carry on by the light of my Davis lamp, many men were injured working under these conditions, sometimes fatally.

By 1946 my time in the mines ended and it was with a sense of great relief that I made my way home to Brighton — imagine my surprise and the irony when within a fortnight of returning home I received my call up papers for the army.

On joining the RAOC my first posting was a return to the north to Catterick where I stayed for about six months before transferring to the REME, where at last I was in a job that I enjoyed and where I served the rest of my conscription in command of a woodworking shop in Caermarthen in Wales.
One of the perks of this posting was that I was the official company sign writer, as I couldn’t drive I was assigned a car and driver and we spent many sunny afternoons driving down to Porthcawl and enjoying the beach.
The contrast between these two occupations could not be more marked, on the one hand working a mile underground, in rat infested conditions with unsafe machinery, and on the other commanding a workshop, carrying on my trade as a carpenter above ground; and in the sun.

I would still have swopped either of these to have joined my brother in the fleet air arm. I did achieve my ambition after I finished my army service, I did learn to fly, and qualified for my fix wing and helicopter licenses.

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