大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War sebsite by a volunteer from the Lincoln CSV Action Desk on behalf of Ron Hampshire and added to the site withhis permission. Mr Hampshire fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

DEMOBILISATION.

When this bloody war is over,
Oh, how happy I shall be!
When I get my civvy clothes on
No more soldiering for me.

We must have sung this lament thousands of times during the war years and it has to be said that we sang with very little belief that it would ever happen! But it did and I for one had to face a completely new way of life.

I had gone to war as a seventeen-year-old naive boy and now here I was twenty-four years old, married with an expert knowledge of radio location but not much else. I had been fortunate to have the responsibility for men particularly in N.W.Europe, where we had been detached from the unit for most of the time. This gave me total charge of the 30 or so men that made up the detachment, so I was used to 鈥渓ooking after鈥� them.

At the time I don't think I gave this lack of experience a great deal of thought but I did wonder if married life would be as happy as our brief time together had been. When I finally came home we had only spent brief leaves together and a large part of that was spent visiting our families. So Joyce and I were going to have to start all over again, but I need not have worried.

Joyce had spent the last two years of the war dashing between Rotherham and Kent. Shortly after the invasion the SE part of England was subjected to the ordeal of V1's and V2's and this resulted in Joyce going up to stay with my parents to get away from the danger. This was quite real as she worked at Bush House in the Strand travelling up to the city every day. I think the last straw was a land mine that fell near Shortlands station. Whilst in Rotherham she worked in the Ministry of Food. Once the danger passed she returned to Shortlands and became a Tax Inspector!

How she managed to find us a flat I don't know but we were in our own home, furnished with Utility furniture and marvellous to come home to. She had also found a job in Beckenham, which meant an end to the travelling to London each day.

For nearly seven years service I had a gratuity of 拢97, which was a fair sum in those days but not a lot to start our new life with. We seemed to be enjoying ourselves and I didn't rush to find a job until my Father-in-law broached the subject one day so I got a copy of the local

paper and looking through the lists of box nos. I saw one ad. with the firms name clearly shown so I decided that was the one for me and off I wrote.

I was asked to go for an interview and was offered a job at 拢5 a week with the International Harvester Co. of Gt. Britain to start in three days time. So I did and my new career was launched! Unfortunately I was not able to go in my demob-suit as it had met with an accident. One Sunday evening we were standing at the bus stop by Shortlands station when the heavens opened and we got soaked. After a time an Austin coupe pulled up and offered us a lift for which we were very grateful. When I next took out the suit to wear I found that it had shrunk by about 4 inches in the leg and was no use at all. I think that it must have been made from Dewsbury shoddy, as our battle-dress had been much better.

I had no idea that there would be so many twists and turns or that I would find myself in so many different situations and places.

I was also to find myself one of the exceptions to the hope in the last verse of the lament that I quoted at the start;

NCO.s will all be navvies,
Privates ride in motor cars.
NCO.s will smoke their Woodbines,
Privates puff their big cigars.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.