It was Saturday. I was shown to my billet and started to get settled in, finding out the lay of the land, questioning my new companions. Were conditions very strict? No, not really, I was assured. What about Sunday, was there a church parade? Well, yes but you don’t have to attend, many don’t. My sister and her husband lived in Surbiton, close to a bus route passing through Esher and Esher was within walking distance from Oxshott, so on Sunday I set forth, catching a bus at Esher and spending a pleasant day with them. Arriving back just before midnight I assembled all my new webbing equipment and then slept well. In the morning my new companions informed me that there was to be a sergeant-major’s parade at eight o’clock, in shirt-sleeve order and I felt a little apprehensive because I now had no time to blanco my equipment; there was nothing for it but to go on parade multi-coloured. Since we were not wearing battledress blouses I had another little problem. The previous Christmas one of my sisters had given me a pair of braces (suspenders in North America), very patriotic, in red, white and blue stripes and these didn’t improve my appearance either. We assembled in the roadway not far from the big house and with the rest I fell in, waiting for the axe to fall.
The sergeant-major came down the lines, inspecting his charges. When he reached me he paused for a second or two as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. He looked me up and down and then launched into a long tirade concerning my appearance. He drew my attention to the lad next to me and informed me that he had come all the way from Cyprus just to fight for Britain and just look at him, how soldierly he was. Without turning my head I looked out of the corner of my eye and took in this exemplar; in all honesty I had to admit to myself that there was no comparison between us but of the two I thought I was the better looking. Mentally I told myself that I had come all the way from Bristol via Filton, Plymouth, Westward Ho and Tidworth with the same idea but I had been in the army long enough to know that it was impossible to win an argument with a higher rank so I put on my wooden soldier’s expression and stared straight ahead. Eventually he ran out of steam as I knew he would; he took my name and number and charged me with being improperly dressed. Fortunately for me the officer hearing the charge was not so impetuous and gave me the opportunity to explain that as a territorial I had never been fully kitted out; he dismissed the charge.
But Sergeant-major McCullom had seen his little fish slip through his fingers and I was now introduced to one of the meaner, petty characters that the army had seen fit to elevate. I was ordered to blanco my equipment immediately in the approved khaki colour and had to treat my gas mask cover with the mandated blanco, Pickering’s khaki-green No.3. I often wondered who were the major shareholders in these blanco companies, most units required slightly different shades, but perhaps I'm being a bit cynical. Unfortunately the new gas mask cover had a flaw, it had a large grease spot that refused to take the blanco. The orderly sergeant said, “Do it again.” I did. The results were the same, as were the third, fourth and fifth try. These orderly sergeants, there were two of them, now had a victim; at no time did either of them offer any suggestions or watch me as I assiduously blancoed away at that confounded gas mask cover. Eventually the truth must have dawned on them and I had the cover exchanged but from then on my name was the first one to come into their little minds when an unpleasant task came up or one invented especially for me and for three weeks I had practically no free time for myself.
One other incident stays with me from those days, a sad one really. A young lad of about 19, infantry I believe, was in quite a state. He told me that his mother was a widow and that he was the youngest of three sons. One brother had been killed in North Africa and he had heard that very morning that his other brother had been killed in a training accident; he himself was waiting for a posting to Lord knows where. I believe the army has been known in such cases to discharge a lone survivor but this lad was not to be consoled. I don’t know the outcome.
Oxshott does not evoke very happy memories in my mind and for a long time afterwards I harboured thoughts of meeting those three after the war, on more equal terms or on terms more favourable to me but now I can’t even remember what they looked like. The future became a little brighter when on a later postings parade my name was called out and I was en route to Aldershot, to Parson’s Barracks.
ALDERSHOT
Accommodation in Parson’s Barracks was in the comparatively new spider huts, six corridors emanating from a common hub terminating in our sleeping quarters. Again the beds consisted of three bed boards on wooden trestles and three biscuits; Four blankets completed the ensemble. I think that we were there just filling in time before we were sent on an overseas draft and each morning we paraded in front of the Company Office for roll call before being marched off to the Ordnance Workshops, there to be split up into our various trades. Initially I was sent to a fitting bench where my main unofficial job was to convert an English penny into a spitfire brooch for my sister. Later I was transferred to the Drawing Office. I don’t recall exactly what I worked on, nothing earth-shattering but this was to be the pattern of things for the next couple of months.
This was a peacetime undertaking employing mainly civilians both in the offices and workshops and supplemented during the war by army tradesmen. There were relics of a bygone age when time was not of the essence; on the walls were some drawings on thick cartridge paper of weaponry with the various metals indicated by colour washes, blue for steel and yellow for brass while some drawings were in ink on tracing linen. Current drawings however were in pencil on tracing paper.
It was not all office work because we were also given some military training including physical exercises, running around a battle course though not under live firing as some poor souls were. Additionally we were instructed in unarmed combat but it was nowhere near as intensive as infantry training. Also on Sundays we had church parades, marching up the main street behind a band to have our souls saved. With others I objected to this religious nonsense and asked to be exempt. I was offered two alternatives, either march to the church and stand to attention for the duration of the service or opt for fatigue duties; twice I chose the former but then decided that peeling potatoes gave me the opportunity to vent my frustrations on the poor tubers, slicing them into cubes or sculpting faces on them. I thought that my best move would be to approach the padre and ask to change my religious designation. “To what?” he enquired. “To agnostic,” I answered, “it means I don’t know.” “I'm well aware of what it means,” he said “but the army doesn’t recognise agnostics and since you say that you don’t know then keep coming to church and we’ll teach you to believe.” I realised at that moment why so many of the soldiers’ bawdy songs are sung to hymn tunes, sung quietly to themselves it let them feel that although the army had control of them physically it could not tame their thinking.
About this time, having been in the army for more than three years I sewed the dog’s hind leg, an inverted chevron, on my blouse cuff. This lasted until one evening when on guard duty the guard commander didn’t turn up. “Who’s the senior soldier?” asked the orderly sergeant. He looked around and espied my chevron and “All right, you, you’re now the acting guard commander. March them off. I did. The next day I removed the chevron. It was then that I decided not to volunteer for anything, nor try to evade anything, I would let life unfold as it would. My rationale was that if ever I found myself in a tough spot I could always blame the system, never myself for being such a fool. I had volunteered twice, once when I joined up and again when I applied for a transfer out of the Royal Signals and I decided that was enough.