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This story appears courtesy of and with thanks to the Liverpool Diocesan Care and repair Association and James Taylor.

Ron Shaw who was born in 1908, was not impressed with his commanding officers.

When I grew up I joined the Forces, and you don't half meet up with a broad cross section of people. We were in the hut and we all started to speak to each other, but even then you were weighing people up and thinking to yourself who's telling the truth and who was lying.
My father used to tell me that a liar was worse than a thief because, what can you do with a liar?

Now a lousy N.C.O., was taking money off the lads, so they could get a signature on a weekend pass, so they could go home, and he had no more power than I had , so he was reported and it was stamped out and he wasn't seen again, I don't know how long he got.

One thing you could always get get in the Forces was good comradeship, you could always count on fellas to help you if you needed it. It was always more genuine in the Forces than in civi Street, and I was fortunate to stay with one unit all the way through.
I was with number one (1) Gun Artilary and then I became troop sgt. Major. It's a position of some importance because you work very closely with the top brass and everything used to go through me. I had to make myself available to the officers, even if I didn't like them.
Some of the bloody officers we had were very bloody poor leaders of men.
They could do the talking, but couldn't do it out there in the field.

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