大象传媒

A new recruit in Bakewell, Derbyshire

This is the second story in a series of six short stories written by my father AEG Allsop. He was born in Cromford, Derbyshire, in 1918.

Purely by accident of birth date I just missed being conscripted into the militia in 1938 when the government woke up to the possibility of having to arm for conflict. War was declared on Germany on September 3rd 1939. Five days later I found myself being medically examined at the Drill Hall in Chesterfield and on the 12th September reporting for duty in Bakewell together with about thirty equally surprised young men. What we did not know was that all three companies of the Second North Midlands Corps Signals had arrived that very same day.

I seem to recollect, it is after all sixty years ago, that we were sent home to report again the following morning when we were taken in hand by Sergeant Kitchen and a corporal who marched us off to the quartermaster's store where we were completely kitted out with battledress, khaki shirts, overcoats and heavy woollen underwear. Eventually we were carried off to a nearby farm where we filled our palliasses with straw. Our first day ended in the Wheatsheaf clubroom where we bedded down on the floor and tried to sleep.

The following morning, fully attired, unwashed, we were marched off to Burton Closes for breakfast. Jammed together at trestle tables in our unaccustomed overcoats it was only with difficulty that we could bring our forks to our mouths. There was plenty of food to eat.

We were soon into a routine of parades in the Market Square, marching and drilling with rifles that so far were without slings and no sign of ammunition. On fire picket faced with a small mountain of potatoes (enough for an army !) we cranked a machine that knocked the spuds around, the peelings being washed away by an attached hosepipe. We got soaked, but it was a good laugh. It was part of my duty to sweep out our billet and as I was attempting to clear the mud deposited on the stairs by many pairs of boots the Orderly Officer of the Day arrived on his tour of inspection. I stood smartly at attention with my brush pressed to my side. I could scarcely see him for dust, nor he me.

Following breakfast one winter morning we stood in the snow to gargle with potassium permanganate prepared by the Medical Orderly. Influenza had struck ! I was assigned to collect the dirty laundry from the Cooperative Hall which was full of sick men. We loaded the bags into an army truck and drove off to the laundry at Cromford, my home. I wondered if any of the workers there recognised me ? Within days I too became a victim to influenza and was sent to the Union (now Newholme Hospital) for about a week when I was adjudged fit for duty.

We were now in the grip of a savage winter. In Matlock Road patrols stood by to warn passersby of the hugely menacing icicles that hung from the eves. We were lorried off to a hill where, equipped with shovels, we helped the roadmen to chip ice off the road. Our outdoor programme was virtually impossible. Regimental Sergeant Major Cutts gave instruction on military discipline as defined in the Army Act by reading pages and pages itemising the hundreds of misdemeanors that we might commit or contemplate committing. On conviction the sentence always ended "Punishment by Death or such less punishment as in this Act mentioned".

Unhappily I again became a casualty and so off to the Union; but this time whilst undergoing the compulsory bath, as would the countless itinerant vagrants seeking shelter in the workhouse, the male orderly detected a rash. With others I was hurriedly taxied off to the Leicester Frith isolation hospital with German measles .... why German ? I do remember so well that each bed had its brightly coloured patchwork quilt no doubt made by the friends of the hospital. The wards were staffed by Red Cross Volunteers. Through a round glass window at the end of the ward it was just possible to see that the neighbouring ward was filled with sick service women and I found myself looking into the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen.

Back to Bakewell to find that almost all my section had been sent on courses to learn to read and transmit the Morse Code. I requested that I might join them. Captain Kennedy agreed and I travelled by train to South Shields where we received tuition at the Marine School. We were billeted in the Glebe Hall sleeping on the floor as always. It was here I celebrated my twenty second birthday in April. Spring had come at last.

Before the course was completed we were recalled to join the Corps when it finally left Bakewell for an encampment at Fleet near Aldershot. Those few days we spent under canvas, swimming nude in a nearby lake, followed by a brief period billeted with the Guards in Wellington Barracks, were probably the healthiest of our training.

Time after time we were moved on into a succession of large houses requisitioned by the War Department which lacked the washing facilities and sanitation for as many men as could find space enough on the floor to spread their blankets, blankets which in four years were never exchanged or washed ! For all that we were quite content with our lot. We enjoyed the life making many good mates, not concerning ourselves overmuch with the progress of the war which one day would engulf us. Periods of leave, eagerly anticipated, proved desperately boring, and food rationing at home was biting. My home which had no bathroom was now shared with an RASE sergeant and his wife.

Fate again intervened. Measles broke out and the whole wireless section had to be isolated. I was really quite ill. Still later we were housed in racing stables at Newmarket where my service career ended. I contracted meningitis and I have since learned that there were many more cases.

What a waste! It costs the government an enormous sum of money to feed, equip and train a signals radio operator; in my case four wasted years. Some poor bloke had to take my place when the 11th Armoured Division embarked for France soon after D Day. Did he survive ?

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