A Lancashire Lad Goes To War. Chapter 1

PEACETIME

New Year's Eve in 1939 started much as it had done so the previous year. It was the first time I had been allowed out after half past ten, on the understanding that I was home by one in the morning. At around quarter past eleven, my friends and I made our way to St Michael's Square in Ashton-under-Lyne with many hundreds of other people. The Parish Church of St Michael and All Angels was at one corner of the Square. There was much good-humoured fun from everybody, and at midnight a maroon was fired from the town hall to mark the start of the New Year. The church bells rang through a medley of changes and peels for about 15 minutes and the crowd joined hands and sang "Auld Lang Syne". We stayed until about quarter to one and then hurried home.

If New Year's Day had not fallen on the weekend we would have been back at work the following day, as New Year's Day was not yet a Bank Holiday in England. I would have had to be ready to start at half past seven, which required me to clock in even earlier.

My course of night school at the Manchester College of Technology started again after the break, in the second week of January. I attended the college three nights a week and did two nights of homework, which meant that during the college term I had only the weekends free. As I and the apprentice I travelled with were now running our own presses, Jimmy Horrocks (one of the Owners) would not allow us to leave half an hour early (as we had before), so we had to work until half past five. This was too late to give us time to go home for something to eat, so we had to sneak a sandwich whilst working - eating during working hours was not permitted.

The journey to the college took three-quarters of an hour by tram, and there was a stop near to our destination. The train took twenty minutes, but the station was on the other side of town, twenty minutes' good walking distance. It was cheaper to go by tram as the fare was 3d. (1.25p)
When travelling by train we had to keep our fingers crossed that the class finished no later than 9 o'clock, as we had to run across Manchester to Exchange Station for the 9.15 pm - first stop Ashton. Sometimes we caught it, but often we were on the bridge as it pulled away underneath us. We then had to run like mad to Victoria Station to catch the 9.20 pm Stopping Train, arriving at Ashton Charlestown Station at 9.50 pm. This meant that I arrived home at about 10 o'clock, when my mother would have a meal ready for me. It was a long day to leave home at 7.15 am and not return until 10.00 pm. The College Term finished with exams at the end of May.

War clouds were now very heavy over Europe. Germany had moved into a piece of France that had been disputed over several centuries. Unfortunately, France and Britain had been disarming for fifteen years or more, so neither country had anything to fight with. Germany and Italy had been re-arming for about ten years! National Service Registration was introduced that year - which meant that I would either have to serve in the Armed Forces or go down the mines - and I received my notification to register late summer. My friends and I made the most of things by playing bowls and tennis, cycling and hiking. In June I went for a week's holiday to Colwyn Bay with a friend, as I assumed that my Call-Up could not be far away. On 15 June, my brother Harry married Dorothy Barlow, and I was the Best Man. The Reception was held at the Highland Laddie on Old Street, and this provided my introduction to beer! For the life of me, I could not understand why people drank the stuff!! The rest of summer went by without any big events.

WAR

On 3rd September, 1939, when I arrived home from church, my father had the radio on. Whilst I was making the gravy for lunch, Neville Chamberlain came on and said that Germany had not withdrawn its troops from Poland as requested, so we were now in a State of War. I think my mother shed a few tears, knowing that she had three sons who would have to go into battle. I cannot remember my feelings or those of my brothers.

Streets and houses were blacked out. Many people, including my parents, bought a type of net that was stuck to the inside of the windows to stop glass shattering into the room in the event of a bomb blast. John Fletcher - just out of his time (which meant that he had completed his seven years' apprenticeship)and I decided to volunteer for the War Printing Section of the Royal Engineers, so we asked the Union to give us papers to say that we had served as Apprentice Lithographic Printers. These duly arrived and we went down to the Recruitment Office in Manchester. The Recruiting Sergeant said to me, "You're twenty and you'll be called up any day, so get the hell out of here!" The queue was 'miles long' and I was in the way. (Once war broke out, the queues starting forming at all the recruitment offices and Manchester was no exception. I remember seeing the Pathe News and looking at the photographs in the newspapers of the lads volunteering. These pictures were genuine and not faked for publicity purposes. Even though we knew about the First World War, we still wanted to 'Join Up' and serve our country. John was accepted straight away, and went on to a 'cushy job' in the Royal Engineers - staying in England. After the war, (which I came through totally unscathed) he told me that he'd got shot in the foot whilst on Exercise!

At the beginning of October, 1939, I received my Call-Up Papers and a Travel Warrant for Salisbury, but could not make out what type of Unit I was to join. Neither Dad nor I could decipher the handwriting (even though my father was a General Postmaster so was used to reading all sorts of scribble!) Examination of the map suggested that I was going to Larkhill on Salisbury Plain, and I was instructed to report on 16th October. I therefore went to Manchester and boarded the train to London. Arriving there, I had to transfer to Waterloo Station; asking about the Underground, I was told that I would have to change stations, so I thanked the staff and took a taxi. I told the driver where I wanted to go, and once we had started he asked whether I was reporting for duty. When I confirmed that this was the case, he would only take half the fare and wished me luck.

I found an empty compartment in the train, but was soon joined by another lad of my age. After we had started talking I discovered that he too was going to Larkhill; his name was Tom Beasley, and he also came from the Manchester area. Like me, he was unable to decipher his call-up papers. We arrived at Salisbury and alighted, to be met by two sergeants - one shouted "Larkhill, fall in line" and the other "Bulford, fall in line". There seemed to be about fifteen men going to each destination; we climbed into 3-ton trucks and had a bumpy ride to Larkhill. We were shown our barrack room and allocated beds. We then had to go to stores to collect three sheets (later they were withdrawn because Lady Astor said that men never sleep between sheets, so it was a waste of money), blankets and pillowslips. By now it was about 5 o'clock, and we were taken to the cookhouse for a meal: large greasy chops, greasy fried potatoes and wet cabbage - it was ghastly! We were then left to sort ourselves out.

The following day we collected our uniform and kit were shown how to lay it out on our beds. By now I had found out that I was in a Royal Artillery Survey Training Regiment. We were put in the charge of Sergeant "Paddy" Lennon, who explained what the Regiment was about and gave us a short mathematics test. Only half of us passed - those who failed were posted to a gun regiment. I don't know what happened to Tom as I never saw him after the first night. I soon made friends with others in my squad - Tommy Winship (who was to become a life-long friend), Roy Rix and a few others, making a squad of about thirty.

We settled down to about three or four months of survey training and square-bashing. The survey-training meant that we had to work out the co-ordinates of a specific point which was basic use of trigonometry. Our pay was 2s.0d a day - 14s. (70p) a week, and I sent home 3s.6d (17.5p) a week to my family. My father did not want to keep this money so he saved it all up in an account which he gave back to me after the war when I was getting married. I also had 6d. (2.5p) a week deducted for barrack-room damage. I thought that this was a bit of a con as there was very little opportunity to get into mischief in the barracks - particularly as an NCO would sleep in a room at the end of each barrack in order to keep an eye on things. He was responsible for his barrack and would not tolerate any damage being caused. Usually, by Thursday I was broke; nevertheless when it was my 21st birthday on 6th December, 1939 I took my pals Tommy and Roy out for a slap-up meal of sausage and chips at the local YMCA!

On 18th December, 1939 I was given ten days' home leave. One morning I was walking home from visiting my aunt when someone called to me, and I recognised her. She was the young, pretty, dark-haired girl who worked in the offices of Horrocks the Printers. She told me that she had been threatened by a local man and that he was following her, and asked me to see her safely home. Of course, I agreed - even though I knew my dinner would be cold! I asked if I could take her to the Pictures that night and she agreed. Fate certainly played a good hand, though little did I know that this was the girl I was going to marry.

All too soon my leave came to an end, and on 28th December I was stuck at Amesbury Station - about five miles from Larkhill - freezing cold and no transport. I set off walking. It was pouring down with rain which was instantly freezing and the road surfaces were like sheets of glass. The power lines and telephone cables had about an inch of frozen ice weighing them down - so much so that many of them were strewn across the road. When I arrived back at the barracks, my greatcoat was frozen stiff and would not bend so the lads had to help me get out of it. It was solid so they just stood it up in front of the iron stove to melt. It looked like the invisible man!

Training continued, and at the end we sat our Trade Test. I was fortunate to score 99% - the highest mark in all the squads that sat the test. Passing entitled us to another shilling a day, which meant that we could survive until the end of the week. We had now to decide what we wanted to do, as there were three aspects to surveying: Artillery Survey, Flash Spotting and Sound Ranging. The first involved sighting the positioning of the gun. Flash Spotting involved watching the enemy lines with an instrument similar to binoculars and a theodolite, and reporting to HQ the bearing of the flash of the enemy guns - information from three or four Spotters enabled the position of the gun to be determined. However, Tommy, Roy and I chose Sound Ranging. Five microphones were positioned along the front line, each of which was linked to a recorder in HQ. In front of the microphones and in the centre was stationed the Advance Post (AP). This was the person who pressed a control button to start the recorder when he heard an enemy gun firing. The recorder used film marked with lines signifying the passage of time; the Film Reader could pick out individual guns and measure the time difference of the sound's arrival at the various microphones. This information could be plotted, again allowing the location of the gun to be determined.

FRONT LINE ----------------------------------------
ADVANCE POST

Microphone (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

HEADQUARTERS

It is worked out from the time difference between one and two, two and three, three and four, four and five.

We had about another two months' training on this subject. I chose to be an Instrument Operator, Roy specialised in Film Reading and Tommy went for Advance Post. About four or five of us were brought before a Board of Officers and asked if we would like to take a Commission. I refused, saying that the pay of a Second Lieutenant was insufficient to meet the Mess Fees. It was suggested that I ask my father to pay them or use up my savings. I refused, and so the Board declared my interview over, saying that my attitude left much to be desired!

In May 1940, we were transferred to the 2nd Survey Regiment of the Royal Artillery (who had returned from Dunkirk, leaving all their equipment behind in France). We joined them in a little village just outside of Fordingbridge in Hampshire. There was nothing much to do - apart from drilling up and down and doing the odd route march. Eventually we gained a single-decker AEC bus - commandeered by the War Office - and a huge horsebox which belonged to a famous race-horse trainer, Dorothy Padget. We promptly transformed this into the HQ vehicle, and after some time more transport arrived together with a Recorder Mark 2, microphones and much cable. However, we lost the bus and horsebox - commandeered elsewhere.

We moved to Urchfont in Wiltshire - just on the edge of Salisbury Plain where it was our job to locate the guns practising with live shells on the other side of the Plain. The Gunners were also training and unfortunately upset the local vicar who was incensed when his greenhouse was "shelled". The Second Lieutenant was busy trying to calm him down by assuring him that it would never happen again, when the Gunners finished off the greenhouse even as the officer was still talking!

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