How Britain Kept Calm and Carried On (13 page)

At Wootton Bassett, near Swindon, in October 1940, a party of about thirty Pioneers were on detachment. Our duties were to work with the Royal Engineers in the erection of a
Nissen hut camp. One dark morning when we paraded at about 8 a.m. in our denims and general working gear, the NCO proceeded to go through the ranks, shining a torch in our faces, and also at our
feet. I think at least half the detachment was found not to have shaved, or to have had dirty boots.

All the unfortunates were ordered to parade at 6.30 p.m. at the company office in their best suits and smartened up. Everything went quite well, until one tall young man was discovered without
his gaiters.

‘Where’s your gaiters, man?’ asked the NCO. ‘You’ll be coming on parade in a bloody high hat next!’

Leslie Randall, Lambeth

On an anti-aircraft gun site somewhere in England, a sentry is patrolling. An extra duty is for him to answer the telephone when it rings a ‘red alert’, which means
that enemy planes are approaching. As he patrols, he hears footsteps coming up the lonely, dark country lane. He rises to the big occasion with a sharp ‘Halt, who goes there? Friend or
foe?’

It is an orderly sergeant and an orderly officer making a tour of inspection. The orderly sergeant answers: ‘Friend.’

At this precise moment, the telephone rings and the sentry says to the orderly sergeant: ‘Hold this a moment, will you?’ and hands him his rifle.

The sergeant cannot believe his ears, but takes the rifle. The sentry picks up the phone and takes the message, then returns to the waiting sergeant and as-yet unidentified officer, takes the
rifle back and says: ‘Thanks, sergeant, pass friend, all is well!’

And the officer is permitted to accompany the sergeant without being challenged, or shot as a foe!

C. Clark, Maidstone

We’d been out on the assault course and were dead beat. We returned to our Nissen hut and stoked up the fire in the stove that stood in the centre of the hut. We hung our
denims all around to dry, then turned in. The stove heated up and the chimney glowed red. A pair of denims caught alight. A Corporal Diamond called out the fire picket. They told him to get
stuffed. Everyone just lay on their beds. So he ran out to get the fire bucket. The roof was blazing at this point but no one else moved. He came back with the bucket, looked down at his
mud-stained feet and, before throwing it on the fire, sat on the end of a bed and washed his feet!

Roy Barker, Thornton-Cleveleys

I was in the ack-ack from 1940 to 1946 and moved around quite a bit from Wales, Scotland, the London area and quite a few others. I recall being stationed at Wick. Our camp was
quite near to the Ross Head Lighthouse and to get there we had to pass through Wick airfield, which was run by the RAF, and along a lonely country road. One very dark night, the sentry on the gate
heard this ‘clip-clop’ coming along the road and as it got nearer and nearer, he could just make out a white patch. He was scared out of his wits. It turned out to be one of our chaps
returning to camp from local leave. He’d had quite a few drinks and had borrowed a horse from a field. He rode it into camp and even tried to get it up the steps into the guardroom. There was
pandemonium.

Ernest Bamforth, Lincoln

Snoring has always been a topic of conversation in my life, whenever sleep is mentioned. I suppose I could claim to be ‘the greatest’.

It came to a head one night in 1941. Sleeping in one of the barrack rooms with about thirty other soldiers, I must have excelled myself with extra loud snores and grunts. Tin hats had been
thrown at me, some missed, others, alas, were on target. Heavy boots also came my way with the same results. Nothing, it seemed, would wake me up and halt the snoring. So my bunkmates pulled me out
of bed, stripped me starkers and lay me on the floor in the freezing cold.

In the morning that’s how the sergeant found me on his ‘wakey-wakey’ tour. Sore and black and blue, teeth chattering, I had a terrible job explaining what had happened. One of
the lads came to my rescue and told him the story. But I had the last laugh – the MO gave me ‘excused duties’ for that day.

F. G. Jones, Shotton, Deeside

The army had taken over a new housing estate in Liverpool for the purpose of billeting recruits, of whom I was one. Can you imagine my feelings when the house I was seconded to
contained the heavyweight boxing champion Larry Gains, the Fielding Brothers – themselves two well-known pugilists, and a PT instructor named Fred Fulwood who was the local strongman from the
same street as me? And I, of all things, worked as a window dresser. What a mixture! Naturally I was proud to live in the same billet as such a famous hero as Larry Gains. Alas, he wasn’t the
most humorous of persons, probably his career had contributed to that. As I walked up the bare stairs in my heavy boots that first night, I was greeted by the great man himself, who roared:
‘Take those bloody boots off when you walk up and down the stairs!’

Needless to say, from then onwards, off came those boots!

F. G. Jones, Shotton, Deeside

The orderly officer on his rounds walked into our mess at dinner and asked the same old question: ‘Any complaints?’

One soldier replied: ‘Yes, sir. We can’t eat this meat. It’s so bad that a dog wouldn’t eat it.’

Well, the officer happened to have his dog with him and picked up a piece of the meat and threw it at the dog. The dog just swallowed it and the officer, eyebrow raised, said: ‘It must be
all right.’

The officer walked on. The dog hung back.

The soldier called after the officer: ‘Look at your dog now! He’s licking his arse to get the taste out of his mouth!’

Mr S. E. Smith, Essex

I was in the Royal Engineers at Thorpe Mill, Triangle, near Halifax in 1942. We would parade every morning on the square and the lieutenant colonel would stand at the end of
the parade ground, always accompanied by his Alsatian dog.

We always said that dog ate ten men’s rations. One morning we were all lined up and Sergeant Major Henry Hall, complete with silver-knobbed stick, bawled out to the entire parade:
‘Ah-ten . . .’ an order which the Alsatian finished with a mighty ‘Woof!’

Every man stood sharply to attention and then fell into roars of laughter as we realized we had been brought to attention by a dog. The lieutenant colonel turned away to conceal a laugh but the
sergeant major went barmy, all red in the face and shouting: ‘As you were!’

I think that’s the only time the Royal Engineers were brought smartly up by a dog.

Mr A. S. Cobb, Hull

I was stationed at Cleave AA camp near Bude. The warrant officers and sergeants were accommodated in huts with separate rooms, each of which was shared by two men. One night
when two of the sergeants were in the mess bar, a sheep, which had been grazing nearby, was caught and put into their room. The electric lamp was removed and the door closed. Later that night, the
sergeants, having consumed a few beers, returned to their room. You can imagine the rumpus. The sheep was running around the room trying to get out, and neither of the sergeants had a clue what was
happening.

W. Norris, Watford