Early manhood is a difficult time and Joe was no different from any other young man setting out in life. When living at home he had felt at times great anguish. The feeling of being trapped that some how this was his lot and from it there was no escape was now replaced with a form of excitement and with each mile covered; he was being taken away from the predictable drudgery of West Bowling.
He reasoned that his future was if nothing else, unpredictable and that gave him comfort to think that around each corner there was the possibility of something new.
The train approached the Home Counties. It was raining, the sky was featureless and the colour of lard. Above the train a flock of black sparrows screeched, fell and swirled around the fields on some sort of migratory route south.
A Major from the army recruitment office had arrived at the door with his batman six weeks before and because he was under 18, it was necessary for one of his parents to sign his life away. His dad was adamant.
‘Bloody army’ was all he could summon up about the subject. ‘Bloody army’ he muttered as he left the room.
Joe’s mam signed the document; she did not smile like Joe. The Major called him Joseph and shook his mother’s hand. They looked so smart and clean in contrast to the dark, shabby, back room and giving his mam a smart salute they did an about turn, left the house, the metal studded boots of the Sergeant grazing the cobblestone passageway as they walked down to the street, and jumped into the Landrover before speeding off..
Joe had been excited then. Excited by the uniform, the insignia, and the smell of highly polished boots and Sam Browne belts and metal crowns on lapels. It was to him adventure.
‘You’re in the army now’ he thought and somehow looking in the mirror above the fireplace, he saw himself as a young man not a boy. He did not think of wars or battles or indeed of losing his life. He readily accepted if necessary, the idea of losing it. Joe with so much life ahead was preparing himself for the ultimate sacrifice and the violent changes imposed by war, death, revolution to him appeared as a matter of course.
With change came resilience. He was 17 years old and was already taking on board the burden of responsibility. To him there were no bells clanging out the obituary notices of friends. There were only his beliefs that everything was possible.
The train pulled into Kings Cross with much noise and whistling and what presented itself now was the task of negotiating the underground and getting to Victoria to catch the train to Dover.
It was pouring with rain and long queues had formed for taxi’s not that he could afford one anyway. His railway warrant entitled him to underground travel and nothing more. By a succession of polite questions in his thick Yorkshire accent, which some people could not understand he managed by hook and by crook to pop up on the main concourse at Victoria approximately forty minutes later. It was now approaching 5.30 and he was starting to feel hungry having eaten his mother’s corned beef sandwiches hours before.
On the train to Dover, he had for a short time the feeling of making an enforced clean break with the whole of his past and looking out on land he had never seen before he felt quite euphoric,‘goodbye, black satanic mills! goodbye clogs and boiler suits, goodbye dirty old town!’
For once, he felt complete, a part of something, a young man among other young men. He was not afraid and quite prepared to accept all sorts and conditions of men.
In that moment, he looked around the carriage and noticed his fellow travellers. There were many young men his age and it dawned on him that they must also be going to Dover. This was mainly reinforced by regimental haircuts, blazers, and the scrubbed cleanliness of the military. None of them looked particularly happy and on the whole, they looked to him a depressing lot.
Brocklesby was from Sheffield and had worked in the advertising department of a baby food manufacturer. He didn’t pronounce the word baby correctly but insisted on saying ‘baba’ like Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and which after several repetitions was starting to get on Joe’s nerves.
He also was leaving behind his family but unlike Joe, he wasn’t quite sure why he was there other than some mild coercion from his father about it making him into a man.
He was rather an odd looking sort of person. Possibly due to some accident at birth his ears had been squashed over and hung low on the sides of his head like a couple of distorted wing nuts. His demeanour was slovenly being tall, round shouldered, and walked with a gait that reminded Joe of the Goons from Gooney Island, his arms hanging from his side swinging backwards and forwards completely out of synct with his stride.
‘I don’t know what possessed me ta volunteer really rather than be sent. I mean Sheffield’s so dirty, what with the steel works and what not and no matter what, I would have been conscripted anyway eventually, so why not I thought?’
He didn’t smile but seemed to have a constant grimace. He did not share Joe’s view of army life as a new aspect of experience offering infinite promise and menace. He saw it simply as another job, in which it was natural to try to do as well as possible. He sat with his legs crossed; his hands on his lap and was in the process of reading ‘Little Women’ a rather effete book thought Joe, considering this was the future British army.
The train pulled into Dover Priory station at a quarter past seven. It was late January and already pitch black. They picked up their suitcases and holdalls and opening the carriage doors were met by several NCO’s shouting and bellowing all the way up and down the platform.
‘Cheer up me lucky lads, you’re in the Army now’ shouted a sergeant and all those close by gave an appreciative murmur of amusement.
‘Out the gate lads and stand by the wagons. Come on make it snappy!’
Some tried marching in the true military sense and were no doubt products of some territorial unit little realising then how futile the gesture was considered. Sons of former military men, reprobates from all the major cities and towns, fortune seekers, dreamers, and layabouts mustered outside. Stood on a podium facing them waited the duty sergeant, pace stick under his left arm.
‘Right lets have a bit of hush lads! My name is Staff Sergeant Gardner and it is my duty to ferry you lot up to Old Park whereby you will be fed watered and allocated billets for the night.Ya got that? When your name is called, pick up your beds and get on the back of a wagon. You will also be divided into your respective squadrons. Right! Yer got that!’
‘Yes sir!’ shouted several men close by.
The sergeant turned towards them. ‘Don’t call me sir I ain’t been knighted yet! It is Staff you lot, got that?’ For several days he was known as Staff Sergeant 'got that?'
A corporal who was stood close by started shouting there names out and Joe got up onto a wagon. It was dark and the street lights barely illuminated any of their faces. Nobody spoke much, it seemed any notion of fun was fast receding under the almost constant barrage of shouted orders.
Through the streets of a semi deserted Dover the wagons went in convoy up the hills to the barracks.
The castle overlooking the harbour was illuminated beneath a clear sky by a full moon and not a cloud in sight.
When they came to the barrack gates barriers were lifted and once inside Joe saw secured to the wall of the guardhouse a board with the words, ‘No 1 Training Regiment, Royal Engineers.’ It was the spring of 1956 the year of the Suez Crisis.
Once off the wagons they were then marched in a rag bag fashion to the dining hall by which point sprits had lifted. They queued for their food. Joe was learning that in the army you queued for everything.
The choice to Joe was amazing after his diet at home. There were sizzling burghers mash potatoes, carrots and gravy, fried eggs and chips, beans and sausage and nailed on the wall nearby was a sign, ‘If You take it Eat It.’
It was the start of the deliberate mechanisation of their lives. It was the same as any closed institution, the taking of many men from different backgrounds whereby they were fed into one end of the sausage machine and came out at the other end all the same. The military had very little use for individuals. It was not a trait they particularly encouraged. Discipline and regimentation was their speciality.
Joe was allocated B Squadron along with Brocklesby and a number of other lads from up north. It was 9.30 by the time they went to their dormitories each room consisting of six beds and six large, green, metal lockers one by each bed. Squeezed between the bed and the locker was a small side table also green metal. The floors were highly polished wood, the brasses on the windows were highly polished as were the locker handles. Everywhere Joe looked there was bullshit and waiting for them was Corporal Smith a bespectacled young man who was nearly 19 who was in charge of them all. It was onto his shoulders that their fate rested.
‘I’m Corporal Smith 689 you will address me at all times as Corporal, not Corp, not Smudge, not Smithy! Corporal.’
He paced up and down the room.
‘Is that understood?’ They all stood by one of the beds at a kind of attention nodding there heads.
‘I said is that understood?’
‘Yes Corporal’ they shouted in unison.
He then gave them a general chit chat about what life was going to be like.
‘I’m gonna have ya for the first six weeks until you pass out. Then you will be allowed down town and not before. After you pass out you will then move onto the next stage of training. I am responsible for every soldier in this corridor and I like my lot to be the best passing out squad. You’re here ta work I’m here to see ya do. Any help ya want you come ta me. You work and I’ll love you. If you don’t work I’m a bastard.’
When eventually Joe undressed and got into bed, it was quite late. He realised that it was twelve hours since he had said good-bye to his mother. He felt very alone and a great welling misery arouse in his heart and his throat as he thought of her standing on the platform waving good-bye. Tears squeezed themselves out from underneath his tightly closed eyelids, and trickled gently down his cheeks, wetting his pillow.
Eventually the room became silent, and soon all the bedside lights were turned off. Only the moonlight shone through the large windows, casting unfamiliar shadows around an unfamiliar room. People around him snored. Somebody farted. He tried to sleep.
It was a night of strange noises, fire doors slamming, people shouting outside in the night. The crunching noise of studded boots upon the stone floors outside the room door, made him nervous, and excitable. He had launched himself from childhood and the security of home and friends, straight into the unknown world of adulthood. It was the shedding of the invisible apron strings, a movement away from the confines of a place in society that had been designated for him by his birth, and the choices made by others. Here no one knew anything significant about him. It was a fresh beginning.
Eventually Joe managed to drift off into sleep, a thousand thoughts swirling around inside his head.
The next morning at 06.00hrs came the first awakening, and the metal rail of his bed was rattled furiously by the duty NCO. It brought Joe back out of a deep and slumberous sleep.
‘Right lets have you out of these wanking chariots. Leave it alone lad it might drop off!’
He was a cheerful bastard.
‘Right chappies, you’re in the army now! Hands off cocks put on socks.’ The first night was over.
Breakfast was compulsory. It was made abundantly clear to them that if they fainted on the morning parade they would be charged with self inflicting a wound, particularly if they had not had breakfast.
After eating, they paraded outside the squadron block at 0800hrs on a dull, overcast, September morning.
‘Good morning gentlemen. My name is Staff Sergeant Mackie. I and my permanent NCO Corporal Doherty here are the people who over the next 12 weeks you will be seeing an awful lot of. It is upon our shoulders that the heavy responsibility of turning you lot into soldiers firstly, then Sappers, and finally infantrymen falls. Not only that we are going to turn you into men From now on you will not be refereed to as boys, but men, is that understood?’
They all gave an appreciative murmur of having understood.
‘You are all going to do well. Every last one of you will be smarter, fitter, better than that shower over there.’
He referred to A and C squadron intakes, who were parading further up the road, and were being told similar things.
‘Now you will find me a very fair person. You will come to understand that if you play ball with me, I will play ball with you.’
He had still not raised his voice. All the time he walked slowly up and down the three bedraggled lines, his pace stick held firmly under his left arm. They stood in what they thought was the position of attention, huddled together, shoulder to shoulder, like lambs to the slaughter. He went among them making various comments and adjustments.
‘Pull your stomach in lad,’ he whispered in their ears.
‘Arms down by your side now feet at a 45 degree angle stick your chest out son not that far! You’re not a fucking budgerigar are you?’
Raising his voice slightly he went to the front of the squad, and assumed the position of attention.
‘Now you lot may have broken your mothers heart by coming here, but you ain't going to fucking break mine! I'm going to make soldiers out of you lot, if it’s the last fucking thing I do! Is that understood?’
More mumbles of acknowledgement.
‘Right! Face that way,’ he pointed to their left, and they shuffled round.
‘Corporal Doherty! That man there! Second man front rank, the one with the round shoulders,’ it was Brocklesby, ‘looks like a vulture about to have a shit, pull those shoulders back lad! Right take this shower away for a haircut, and then onto the regimental quartermasters for their kit.’
By this time, they had been joined by Lance Corporal Hardy, also from the permanent staff, along with two Sergeants.
Cpl. Doherty stood facing them, under his arm was a pace stick, which he had adjusted to show them what 30" looked like.
‘Firstly, you step off with your left foot first. Then followed by your right foot, placing it 30" in front, like so’ he then proceeded to mark out with his pace stick the distance where the right foot should be placed.
‘In the Engineers we march at 120 paces per minute. No, more and no less you take dressing by looking out of the corner of your eye to the person on your left. You do not turn your fucking head. Try and keep in line with him, and march at arms length from the person in front.’
‘All right listen in! By the left, quick march!’
They set off, some of them virtually hopping on one leg.
‘Left, left, left right, left! Come on! Come on swing those arms shoulder high! Left, left, left right, left!’
Some stepped off with the right foot, and were soon out of step. About a dozen at the front were in step; the remainder were swinging their arms all over the place, and attempting to march. They stepped on the heels of the people in front. Some clouted others with their fists as they swung their arms; it was rather like some giant centipede that had lost control.
‘Swing them arms front to rear lad, front to rear! Keep your distance from the man in front!’
Already there was starting to appear certain individuals. Some thought the whole experience was amusing.
‘So you think it’s funny do you lad! Right break ranks and double over to the other side of the parade ground, and come back here! Move!’
All the time the pace was being shouted out by the NCO's ‘left, left, left, right, left!’
There were winkle pickers, chisel toes, Cuban heels, ‘brothel creepers,’ Oxford shoes, shoes that mum bought, shoes that dads recommended. Some wore blazers, white shirt and a corps tie. In addition, they had grey flannels, and black ‘sensible’ shoes. It was very similar to regimental Mufti, those that wore it were generally the ones whose fathers had attained some sort of rank in the army, and obviously, they wanted their sons to get off to a good start. Placed amongst the rest of them, it did not make the slightest difference with regard's treatment.
Of the remainder, some wore suits some had drainpipe jeans on. There were maple leaf lapels, straight lapels, double breasted jackets, single breasted jackets. There were tall ones, short ones, fat ones, thin ones, and round ones. By the time, they formed a queue at the barbers they were a chattering mass of accents. Geordies, Scots, Irish, Liverpudlian, Welsh, Lancastrian, Cockney.
‘All right girls keep the noise down,’ boomed L/ Cpl. ‘Kiss Me’ Hardy.
They stood for what seemed like hours outside the barbers shop in the drizzling rain. Their haircuts were to be regimental standard, performed by a maniac who seemingly took great delight in shearing them, until their heads looked like a prickly fruit. Joe watched his ‘elephant's trunk’ fall to the barber's floor. It almost brought a tear to his eye, and ‘Sweeney Todd’ thought it was marvellous that somebody had not bothered to have a haircut before arriving, thus it did not deprive him of his greatest pleasure, reducing morale, appearance, and spirit.
From the barbers to the Quartermasters was another exhibition of parade ground prowess forty-five "Coconut" heads out of control. They queued outside one door, and gradually went into a long hut with a counter down one side, behind which stood about a dozen men handing out equipment at various intervals. Firstly, they asked them the size of their ‘Coconuts.’ For those that did not know, there was somebody there with a tape measure. It began.
1 Helmet Steel w/cover camouflage
1 Beret Navy Blue
2 Badges Hat
4 Pairs of Socks Woollen khaki
1 Bag Kit Universal
2 Tins Mess Rectangular Small and Large.
2 Drawers Woollen Long
2 Drawers cellular green other ranks.
2 Boots Leather Standard with laces
2 Shirts No. 2 Dress other ranks.
1 Set of Cutlery for the use of Eating.
2 Sets of Dress Fatigues with Buttons
Somehow, they managed to stuff most things into their kit bags and struggled back to their rooms, being shouted at every inch of the way.
Before being giving the order to fall out, it was explained to them that they were to change into their fatigue dress, go have some lunch, and report back here 5 minutes before the parade time of 1330hrs.
Cpl Smith 689 was available on entering their room, to show them how to attach the buttons to the jackets, and generally have a good smirk at their haircuts. He also showed them how to lace their boots, and gave each one of them a piece of paper that had a diagram on it showing them the regimental layout for their lockers. In other words where to place the equipment and clothing so that they were all identical. In addition, he showed them how to make bed packs, how to do ‘hospital’ corners with their identical khaki coloured bed spreads. Where to place the pillows and how to give them the appearance of being flat on the side that faced the foot of the bed
By now, it was time for lunch. They were becoming practised in the army's answer to everything, the queue. They queued for pay, for equipment, for the NAAFI, and for the ablutions. If there was no queue, then they became suspicious. They queued for their food. Waiting their turn patiently, shuffling forward towards the hot plates, they wondered what they would find.
In the afternoon, they were marched to the medical hut at the far side of the camp. Although they had received a fitness test before entering the army, it was no doubt felt that an extra medical would not go amiss.
It had often been pointed out to Joe that it seemed that he had difficulty hearing people. It may have had something to do with all the battering around the head that he had received when he was younger,
On entering the room, he stood at the end of a line of about five men. He waited for a few moments in silence, and then the doctor said, ‘Can you hear my watch ticking?’ Joe came smartly to attention and replied that he could. The doctor then told him not to be so fucking balmy because he was talking to somebody else.
The bewilderment of the first few days of military training gave way after a month or so to a greater understanding of military thinking. Rota's were devised to enable the cleaning of the room, the toilets, and the corridors. After reveille Joe was leaping out of bed, dressing in suitable cloths for breakfast, carrying out his morning ablutions, cleaning his bed space, laying polish, buffing it off, cleaning brasses, eating, coming back from breakfast, dressing in uniform, and being ready for morning inspection by 0800hrs.
Although a programme of training had been devised, like most things in the army the programme was always susceptible to sudden twists, and changes. This gave it not only an element of freedom, but also surprise. Something of course that was not always possible in the civilian life that most of them had known.
Joe did not think there were many people who would join the army as a means of seeking freedom, but this is what he felt. With regards forsaking his personal liberty, it seemed to him that you couldn’t forsake something you never had in the first place.
He was fortunate in the sense that he fitted in. He felt sorry for those that did not. He saw the miseries that the army is quite capable of administering to soldiers that are considered a waste of space. How they break a person down, and never even bother to build them up again, using a system of discipline that had evolved over centuries of experiences of war, and a variety of military skirmishes, and were implemented against the uneducated, ignorant, and those trying to escape justice. There is very little that the Queens Rules and Regulations did not cover, and early in training, it was made very clear that nobody can ridicule the system, and beware those that try.
The transition from civilian to soldier was dramatic both in its speed and its effect. The whirlwind of Day One left a patchwork of recollections that persisted. Of Does and Don'ts of disbelieve and acceptance of crude instructions on doing things the army way, from lacing boots to making a bed, the proliferation of incomprehensible orders, the rules made known only after they had been transgressed.
Discipline was enforced on a collective basis. If one member of the squad was not sufficiently competent at a particular drill then the entire squad suffered. Clinton was such a person.
He was bollocked almost relentlessly, before, after, and during squadron parades. This was invariably due to what was termed ‘being idle on parade.’ A catch all charge.
‘That man there is idle.’
Such was Clinton’s lot, that the frowned upon practice of placing trousers between the mattress and bedstead to maintain there crease, resulted when he did it, in him being charged with ‘being idle while asleep.’
There were always large amounts of potatoes to be peeled. Each evening, for a couple of hours, some of them would be sent to the kitchens. One lad from Joe’s squad was told to move rice from one container to another: when he asked what with, the Sergeant said without looking, ‘Please yourself lad!’ So looking around he picked up a dirty coal shovel that was lying by the kitchen door, and used that.
Joe had never thought very much about his religion up to that point. Most of his life had been a succession of abstention and when social pressure demanded that he make an acknowledgement to the presence of a Greater Being it was usually undertaken at the local Methodist Church. He had never once been to the Synagogue when younger, his parents considering it something best left alone. There were always other priorities greater than praying. It was only when Joe got a job in the Squadron office that matters took a change for the worse.
Squadron Sergeant Major Nutto was probably the most important figure in the squadron, and also, in Joe's life at the time. He was one of the few soldiers that had seen active service and who, rarer still, wanted to get back to it. He had suffered a head wound in 1944 and still suffered with blinding headaches, but despite this had only been downgraded from A1 to A2.
He lived in expectation of the day when he would be posted to a unit going overseas with promotion to RSM. He was embittered and full of heavy sarcasm for all those above him in the chain of command and all the junior officers particularly were afraid of him.
From the day Joe arrived in the office Squadron Sergeant Major Nutto regarded Joe as a slightly fascinating but annoying curiosity.
Standing in the centre of the room, thwacking his thigh with his swagger stick, he would say:
'I bet you thought you were a right sod when you were with your Jewboy friends. They got us in this war, you know that don't you Bernstein?'
'No sarnt major.'
'They bloody well did, I'm telling you. What do you say to that?'
'I don't say anything sir.'
'You fucking would say something if you were up in Leeds, I'll bet you'd be taking the piss out of me up there. But your not in Leeds, your in fucking Dover and that's were you'll stay till you get posted. And that won't be long.'
Thwack, thwack, ‘Any news of my posting, Jackson?’
‘Don’t you think I’d have told you if there were?’
‘You bleeding clerks wouldn’t tell your own mother the time.’
Such encounters were more upsetting to Nutto. Joe tended to shrug them off as yet another anti-Semitic slur most of which he had encountered throughout his life. To Joe, Nutto was one of those intelligent but ignorant men who were aware of their own deficiencies, and despite whatever else he may feel he had an uneasy respect for devices like the wall chart that Joe had concocted.
One day he asked Joe to explain it to him. ‘Bloody marvellous!’ he said, at the end. ‘I can see why Smith 689 recommended you. You’re a smart sod, Bernstein, you know that. You’re wasted in this office, ain’t that right, Jackson!’
‘He does a better job than you would, sarnt major.’
‘You’re too smart for your own good, you fucking clerks. I’ll tell you something, Bernstein, I’m having you on parade Saturday and you’d better look a bit different from the way you do now. You’d disgrace a squad of pregnant nuns and I’m going in to tell him now.’
For weeks Nutto had been insisting that only one clerk was needed in the office on Saturday mornings, and that either Jackson or Bernstein should attend the weekly parade which was compulsory for all except the sick. For weeks they had ignored him, but now crisis point had been reached. He marched into Major Edwards office, and ten minutes later the Major called them both in and said apologetically that the SSM had insisted that one or the other of them must be on parade, ‘it had better be you, Bernstein.’
On the following morning Nutto came in and stood with legs splayed, thwacking his thigh.
‘Saturday morning then, I’m looking forward to it. Who’s it going to be?’
Nobody replied. He spoke louder. ‘I said which one of you lovely lilies is it going to be?’
Corporal Jackson turned round from his typewriter. He had a line in mock-indignation that Joe could never match.
‘You’ve got what you wanted, sarnt major. Now if you don’t mind we’ve got work to do,’ and if to emphasis the point they both clacked away on their typewriters.
Nutto was not amused. He felt that at least they should have applauded him for winning the game of wits. He snorted and went out.
Nutto’s word was law, and on Thursday night Joe settled down resignedly to polish his belt and badge and press his uniform. But Jackson who lived and slept in the squadron office was made of sterner stuff. On Friday afternoon he retired to his bed at the back of the lockers and when Major Edwards asked for him Joe said he was not feeling very well. He lay on his side a handkerchief pressed against his ear. The Major went round to see him.
‘Sorry you’re seedy Jackson. What is it?’
‘My ear sir. It’s discharging.’ Jackson lay back and after a pause spoke again. ‘I shall have to report sick in the morning sir.’
‘Righty ho.’ Then the Major realised the implications of Jackson going sick.
‘Bernstein is on parade.’
‘That’s right sir.’
The Major stared at him. Later he stood in the office twiddling a button on his jacket.
‘Bernstein, you needn’t go on parade tomorrow. Jackson’s going sick. Must have somebody in the office.’
Jackson went sick and the MO gave him some drops for his ear. They did not see Nutto until late on Saturday afternoon when they were preparing to go down into Dover. He spoke with heavy sarcasm,'Ow’s your ear, Jackson?’
‘Not too good, thanks, sarnt major.’
Nutto did not shout. He lent down and spoke quietly to them.
‘Know what you are, don’t you? You’re a twisting pair of lying cunts. I ought to put you both on a charge.’
‘Go on sarnt major’ Jackson said pointing at the board, ‘who’d keep that if we were both in the glasshouse?’
Nutto knew when he was beaten. In a way he even admired the manner in which brute force had been defeated by tricky intellectualism.
'Nothing about my posting? I'll be glad to be shot of this place and get back to some real soldiering.'
