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I was medically discharged from Blackdown Pre-OCTU in 1942 after an initial training period with the R.A.C. 39th training regiment in Bovington, Dorset. It was extremely frustrating as I was eager to become a troop commander leading Crusader or Centurion tanks in combat. After I left hospital I carried with me three role models , training Sergeants, Heighr, Burt and Dolan. To this day, at 79 years old, I can still hear their admonishments and encouragement in times of stress or difficulty. I would dearly like to learn what became of them.

On leaving Knaphill Hospital, I took an educational grant, studying at the Regent Street polytechnic in London for a period. I shared a large flat in a converted Coaching Inn with three other ex-service men who had been invalided out also. George, who had been at Singapore when the Japs invaded, Peter a second mate from the Merchant Navy Malta run convoys and Bill an older reticent Royal Navy officer, The weekly rent for this eight room flat was only £2, or ten shillings each a week for each of us.

In those days, German bomber planes were being superseded by the notorious V bombs
And pilot less ‘Buzz bombs’, both of which probably caused more emotional stress than actual structural damage in London. Saturation type raids had achieved that impact earlier. As a result, we decided to live life fully while we could in both work and play, but not to take each other too seriously.

Being extremely poor, our opportunities for play were rather limited. Peter and I set up a dartboard in my room where we practiced assiduously every day until we became ‘Dart hustlers’. We had to move from pub to pub when we had won too many beers. During the winter months we would take useless timber from old bomb sites and burn it in the one ex army stove in our drawing room , while sitting around it, exchanging local gossip and passing around a rolled cigarette.

Sufficient food was a problem, but that factor didn’t seem to bother old Bill, the Navy man; he always had a large meat stew simmering In the kitchen. We never discovered its constantly changing composition but it smelled delicious. I can remember sneaking down to the kitchen at night with a slice of bread and skimming off the surface dripping without any feelings of guilt as Bill was certainly mean where his stew was concerned.

Many years later, we reflected what had become of us. George, who had been studying English, became a Deputy Department head in ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio, Peter who had been studying to be a Commercial Artist finally ran a guest house in North Cornwall, Bill had an Antiques shop in the Kings Road and I, who had intended to become and Industrial Designer ended in the Sales and Marketing of Information systems. We were survivors but very fortunate to be so.

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