However, when I put the magazine down, I admit I always seem to say the same myself
- "It's the same old stuff again".
So, I thought I'd have a go and try and do it differently -i.e. give the article
a different slant -and see what comes from the old grey matter. I dread future 'Letters
to the Editor', about what might be called a negative attitude -but worse still,
perhaps, the multitude of literacy errors in the article - but who cares -I'll have
a go, Peter. And anyway, since I'm retired, any' cock ups' could be all explained
away to old age and senile dementia. It is funny how you remember some things and
forget others. But I can still see and recall the scene in our council house kitchen
one tea-time (in those days, I used to have dinner at lunch-time and tea at dinner-time
- in later life I got a commission and found that I had been doing it wrong all those
years!), when I said I was going to join the Army. I was approaching 16 at the time.
"You're too young, you're not joining the Army -and that's that", my Mum said. That
would have been the final word in the majority of cases, but Dad chipped in with
"If he wants to join the Army, let him join, it will do him good".
Arborfield here
we come!
Enough said, on the 28th of August 1956, I signed up in the Recruiting Office
at Chatham on the standard '9 and 3' year engagement, and I was on my way. Why the
Army I ask myself? I'd always been nuts on the Navy and, having lived in a pub, a
Whitbread house called 'The Two Sawyers', from 1944 until 1950 in Brompton which
was within spitting distance of the two main gates of the Royal Naval Dockyard, Chatham
- it begs the question. All the sailors and marines used to use our pub, and I always
saw myself in one or the other of those two uniforms. At closing time, when Dad used
to call time - "Come along you Toffs, please", there was one sailor who used to get
regularly pissed in the public bar. His 'battle stations' call to all and sundry
going out the door was, "If you want to see the world join the Royal Navy". That
seemed a good enough reason for me to join the Sailors. The fact that I had a relatively
poor education indicated that my career prospects in Civvy Street were negligible.
When I saw the offer of an Army 3-year trade apprenticeship, which in no way could
I get outside, I jumped in with both feet. Admittedly I was the Army Cadet Force
(ACF), and the fact that my elder brother had joined the Army Apprentices at Harrogate
two years earlier, this probably sealed my fate. We both started life as electricians,
destined for the Royal Engineers he, as Electrician Machinery and Heavy Plant, and
me as an Electrician Vehicle and Plant. Subsequently, I ended up as a Radar Mechanic
in REME and Tony in 'D' Squadron SAS, what career planning!
What made you join? Have
you ever thought about it? Because for all of us, it changed our lives completely,
mostly for the good, I think. Do you remember the first day of your service? I don't,
the first days of my service are a complete blank to me. Drawing my kit etc. seemed
never to have happened, but I still have a good laugh when I see the stereotype Army
film, which always plays on those 'first moments' in a soldier's life. It was definitely
life for me, as I seemed to have lingered on until the 24th May 1996, '40 years in
the cake!
I still have the photo...
I still have the photo, taken in October 1956 in the barrack
room I shared with the lads of HQ Coy. All scrubbed clean and looking happy in two
regulation rows with the apprentice Corporal and the National Service Education Sgt
(who lived in the bunk) sitting centrally like two mother hens.
In our group was a
lad called Flatman, who was reportedly the smallest chap ever, and since, to join
the British Army; there was nothing of him in size or stature but he gave as good
as he got and never had any trouble. No doubt now he is a large six-footer! What
I can't work out all these years later is why there were only 9 of us in that room,
or 'spider', as they were affectionately called. I do know that later on, after we
all left Junior Div, I recall there were 17 to a room. How did we live with 17 to
a room, eh? All that 'friggin' in the rigging' and farting after lights-out, which
caused no end of hysterics until the Sgt poked his head around the bunk door and
muttered with authority that - "Dress parades tomorrow night may be a f* * ** * *
good idea" -followed by UTTER SILENCE.
It was all bullshit and obedience in that first year. You were not allowed out of
barracks then. I recollect we only got five shillings a week of which about 60% went
on cleaning kit. Blanco, boot polish, dusters and Zebo for the 'Cenotaph' - the old
coal-stove in the centre of the room, from which every spec of ash and dust was removed
in the morning before parade. Then the whole thing was polished with Zebo and copious
amounts of elbow grease, until it gave off this pewter type glow all over only to
be buggered up again that evening when we lit the stove and made toast over the open
door at the top! What kept us sane? Why didn't we suffer from a 'Junior Div Syndrome'
(JDS)? This, by today's standards, should have evolved and struck us down in future
years. You can see the paper headlines of yesteryear "Young soldiers struck down
by JDS - MOD will not payout any compensation".
My mind boggles when I recollect
what we got up to. Out of bed at Reveille and making bed-blocks with NAAFI cardboard
inserts, measured to the nearest millimetre (did we have them then?) with a ruler.
Just before parade there were young men standing on 'dry scrubbers and bumpers',
being shot back and forth over the floor to give a shine you could shave in. And
god forbid any twat that should then walk on the floor without having some type of
cloth wrapped around his boots. Don't forget, we had the old Ammo Boots then, with
thousands of studs in. Shaving bass-broom handles and tables 6ft GS with Gillette
safety razor blades to give the 'white wood effect'. Then we would polish a bloody
bucket -used for rubbish at all other times - with Brasso, so at the time of room
inspection it resembled a large Georgian sterling-silver goblet. Were we all mad?
No, we were just 'conditioned' most of our generation would say 'for the better'
I think but looking back in retrospect, I think it was a good grounding; but for
what, I can't quite put my finger on that at this time!
What sticks in your mind...
For
those who experienced it all what sticks in your mind now? Well, all of the above
of course, but once in a while I get a waft of a smell that hits my taste buds, then
smacks my silenced brain cells of the past into recall. It's the combined smell of
pressed uniforms, bulled boots and polished brass buttons; it is the smell that greeted
you when walking into any barrack room prior to a big parade. Remember the 'button-stick',
mention that today and what you used to do with it, and people would think you were
a demented cousin of Ken Dodd! I couldn't drive a button-stick very well either,
I always ended up getting Brasso on my web belt from the brasses on the back, which
naturally got me 'extras' on the subsequent parade inspection.
What wouldn't I give
to jump into a 'time-machine' and just go back to see it all just once again, just
to poke my head into the barrack room to savour the ambience and atmosphere. One
incident I will always remember was a barrack room kit inspection, one of my mates
had not cleaned his mug properly (remember the one pint white tea mug?). He was told
to hold it up to show the Sgt who promptly hit it with the end of his drill stick
(the end with the brass knob on). Of course it shattered, and the lad was left with
just the ring handle of the mug on his finger, a barbaric act, but hilarious when
I think back and picture the incident in my mind.
The pathetic look on my mate's
face said it all.
Nowadays we all hear, "If only they all had to do National Service,
we would not have the problems we have today". I contend that three years in the
Apprentices' School in the fifties was a degree more taxing than National Service,
well that's my belief; because I shared barrack rbqms with National Service guys
after 'passing out' in 1959, and life was a doddle.
Rituals...
Being tipped out of
bed after lights-out, when Senior Div came back from the NAAFI was the most common
ritual, funny really, when you think that alcohol was not available in the NAAFI
to any apprentices, only soft drinks and cordial-tainted milk. Yet all the offenders
showed all the signs of over indulged lager louts at the time. Sliding the plank
where, when the Seniors wanted 'some fun', they would grab a 'Jeep', blindfold him,
lay him flat on a "Table 6 ft GS flat" and run him around the spider corridors until
he was completely disorientated. Then they would tip him out of a window, onto the
lawn about 4 foot below. Completely harmless physically, but mentally mind-blowing.
If the bunk Sgt was not getting his fill from life and wanted some fun he would find
excuses to have dress parades at night. "5 minutes PT kit", "10 minutes best kit",
"15 minutes bed blocks " (your bed had already been made down for sleeping, on return
from the tea meal). So what kept us sane? God knows, perhaps it was the thought that
"our time would come", but to be honest, I do not think our lot were that devious
and depraved when we reached Senior Div. Life for apprentices certainly got better
as the years progressed. You could not phone home to complain either. Albeit, Bell
had long since invented the telephone, but to my knowledge we never used them, because
very few had a phone at home.
God bless my nan...
Without fail, every Saturday she
would send me a parcel, which usually arrived on the Wednesday afternoon. In that
parcel, always wrapped in brown paper, tied with hemp string, with the knots sealed
with red sealing-wax was always a square of bread pudding, cut up into squares with
lashings of sugar all over; a 2/6d postal order and a packet of 5 Woodbines, together
with a letter with all the news from home. I don't know how many times I read the
letters after receiving them, they were like a soothing literary medication that
cured all evils. Needless to say my 'pit space' would always attract 'visitors' on
Wednesday afternoons - it was the whiff of fresh bread pudding with cinnamon that
did that, I'm sure.
The rest of my time as an apprentice was a rich mixture of experience
and fun. I really enjoyed the sport, who would have thought, if they know me now
as a portly and grey haired mature retiree, that I was the Army junior featherweight
boxing champion at 7 stones 7 pounds. At least they must have fed me well, eh? Enough
for now, I've run out of steam. My best regards go to all mates of the past and I
hope that this story has triggered a few treasured memories from yesteryear. Next
time you have a cup of tea, think of the size of that 'Mug, Tea, White, One Pint'
and wonder how did we manage to drink all of that bromide tea?
PS. It did NOT stop
me 'Friggin' in the rigging' - Cheers
