Memories of Frank Yates Chapter 22

Memories of Frank Yates CHAPTER 22

The beach at Clacton looked very inviting in the early May sunshine and the first thing I did was to buy a pair of swimming trunks- heavy stretch woollen ones in those days! Our first bathe proved to be our last because the sea and the beach were contaminated by fuel oil from the many sunken ships in the North Sea.
On our first Sunday evening, after dinner, we went for a stroll along the coastal path to Frinton on Sea. We did not repeat the exercise, after seeing Frinton. Well trimmed lawns surround the double row of Edwardian , bay windowed houses, from the windows of which, elderly ladies glanced up from their rubbers of Bridge to inspect the interlopers. There were NO public houses and, I believe, the situation has not changed after 61 years. There was NO fish and chip shop, although I understand that this deficiency has now been rectified, but it is on the other side of the railway line! In Liverpool St. Station is the advertising board “HARWICH FOR THE CONTINENT”, to which some wit famously added “AND FRINTON ON SEA FOR THE INCONTINENT”
Out of the blue came an order for me to report to Luton Hoo, for interview by the AOP. people, so, on the appointed day, I caught the train to London, taxi to St. Pancras and a bus, from Luton to Luton Hoo, a huge stately home, owned by a family called Wernher. I was duly interviewed and accepted, but as I had no Field artillery experience, I was informed that I would be placed with a Field regiment.
Almost immediately, I received orders to report to a unit stationed in Cromer. They made me very welcome and I was put in the charge of a captain, who would supervise my training. On the first day, we manhandled 25 pounder guns and limbers about the streets of Cromer. When a small rise was reached, I was astonished by the dead weight of the gun and the limber seemed even heavier. They had a large room, half of which was taken up with a beautiful representation of an OS. Map sheet, built on a large sheet of some sort of scrim or net. The panorama was complete with all details such as roads, churches, houses, woods etc and was most realistic. There was room underneath for a chap, sitting on a chair, on wheels, to move about, to find any map position, the grid being painted on the underside of the scrim. He also had measuring devices, calibrated in yards.
His most interesting piece of equipment was a bit of chemical trickery, rather like a double scent spray, the containers containing ammonia and hydrochloric acid. When the rubber bulb was squeezed the reagents produced a puff of ammonium chloride, which, when squirted up through the open weave material, produced a most realistic shell burst. Firing orders could be given, the fall of shot observed and corrections made, all without leaving the room.
A Sunday evening walk to Sheringham, just along the cliffs from Cromer was very pleasant and a day out at Thetford, an area of heath land , used by the Army as a firing range and as a tank exercise area, to witness a brilliant demonstration of box and creeping barrages. All the 25 pounder shells fired from far away batteries, contained coloured smoke, so that the stages of the creeping barrages could be easily observed.
I received orders to proceed to Adastral House, for an RAF medical exam, so back on the train to London and the very impressive RAF building. The “medical” was very comprehensive, and involved being passed on between about ten medics, half of them female. I well remember one lady got me to blow up a mercury column and hold it for a minute. The glass mouthpiece was designed so that you could not cheat by sticking your tongue into the end of the tube. I knew that I would have no difficulty, but today it seemed a very long minute. When I reached the point when my eyes were bulging, she looked up from her notes and said “You have done just over two minutes, but don’t stop if you don’t want to!” When I reached the eyesight test, the only area where I had any reservations, knowing that I had one very good eye and the other not as good, I was seated at the end of a long black box, looking through two eye pieces. There were two white rods, half way down the black interior, and I was asked to turn a handwheel and line up the movable one with the fixed one. The position of the fixed one was readjusted and I had to balance them again.
After a couple of hours of medical third degree we were interviewed by the chairman of the board, who congratulated me on my general fitness but regretted that I could not be accepted for flying duties because of the imbalance between my eyes. He remarked that I might well land an aircraft, twenty feet too high, or worse, still, twenty feet too low!
So back to Cromer, ready to pack, and not feeling too disappointed, perhaps my enthusiasm for doing a “Biggles” had cooled a bit!
The battery officers’ mess at Cromer was unique among all the establishments I was in during the war; every officer had a little screw topped jar containing his sugar ration. On arriving for breakfast, one’s labelled cache would be collected from a little table and returned afterwards. On my way out to the station, I handed over my precious sugar to the mess sergeant, who promised to find a good home for it!
Nothing had changed in Clacton and nothing much happened, but we heard that we were very shortly to leave for pastures new.
There was a very large dance hall, the “Queens” It was always full because of the thousands of military personnel living in Clacton. On the night before our exodus from Essex the dance band at the “Queens” was Oscar Rabin and his orchestra, one of the big bands that dominated entertainment in the 30’s and 40’s. The hall was full, the bar was busy and a good time was being had by all. A popular novelty dance of the time was the “Palais Glide” which involved linking arms with others, in a line, and performing leg lifting steps to music! Yours truly was in the middle of a line of about twenty dancers, when I leaned too far backwards, slipped and brought the whole line crashing down. The band all stood up to get a better view of the carnage. My colleagues never let me forget the incident!
We entrained in a special, to Cornwall. Starting in the evening, the special found its way round the south of London and joined the GWR line to the west. The tedium of the long night’s journey was relieved by playing poker with 6d stakes. Lucky me, I was the sole winner, amassing about £4, by the time that dawn broke and the train was stopping at Hayle on the north coast, in the far west of Cornwall.
Hayle was a grey town, once making machinery for the tin mining industry, copper smelting and small scale chemical plant. Hidden behind the headland were oil storage tanks, the reason for our presence. We took residence on the Towans, a large collection of bungalows, chalets and hotels. I was now a member of a different troop. The troop commander was Capt. Bob Badhams, a likeable bloke from Birmingham and making up the complement was George Bamford, a member of the famous Bamford firm which made agricultural machinery in Uttoxeter. His brother was the developer of the fabulous JCB earth moving machine, used all over the world. George however had told the family that he did not want to join the firm; instead his interest was in brewing and was a student in the only brewing facility in the country, at Birmingham University. Later on in the year I went on a short leave with George, who had a slight Italian look, not surprising as his Mum was an Italian Countess!
We had four Bofors, deployed round the oil complex and our HQ was a holiday chalet, very comfortable, overlooking the sea. It was a privilege to wake in the morning and before our servant brought a cup of tea, to take in the view across St. Ives bay, the blue sky and the early June sunlight sparkling on the blue sea.
Another troop was occupying the Carbis Bay Hotel, half way to St. Ives. They found that the cellar was full of surfboards and so we visited several times, our own beach, at The Towans, was excellent and my new swimming trunks were put to good use.
Battery HQ was in Penzance and I made several motor bike trips across the promontory to the south coast, taking in the spectacular and unexpected sight of St. Michaels Mount at Marazion, before riding alongside the stone railway protection wall into Penzance. If you, dear reader, get the idea that I was enjoying life, you would be absolutely right.
All good things come to an end and we reluctantly packed up and entrained to Kent, breaking the journey at a large empty school in the Woking area. Our regiment was largely recruited in Geordie land and a lot of the gunners were miners. Coming from the NE, they were football mad, and, as the school boasted three football pitches, I spent most of the brief stay refereeing matches. There was no shortage of first aid men! Looking back with hindsight, it seems daft to have turned miners into soldiers and then calling up “Bevin Boys” to work the mines.

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