This post is part of the "Granddad's War Stories" series.
Chapter 1 - Home Service.
Part 9, Preparation for off.
We took up residence in the middle of nowhere in Northamptonshire. It was forbidden to give our address to anyone and all mail was censored. At first I found the censoring amusing, then trying and then a fearful chore. I do remember one of our younger lads, a dispatch rider aged about 18, who had got himself engaged to three girls, one in Driffield, Yorks., another in Grimsby, Lincs. and another in Croydon, Surrey. He wrote all his letters in triplicate using carbon paper. The letters always started the same way -
"Dear Darling (space for name),
As I write this letter I miss you and think only of you." etc. etc.
I don't know how he sorted it out, because at the end of the European campaign it was rumoured that he had done the same thing in France, Belgium and Holland.
We were in a "concentration area" and were not allowed to leave it or disclose its location. We were on 12 hour notice to pack up and go.
We used our time to "waterproof" our vehicles which meant cunningly covering the engine with an asbestos plastic so that we could plunge into the sea without ceasing up, and bringing our stores and ammunition up to pre-determined levels.
We all got bored. The Battery Sergeant Major (a poacher in private life) took a party of us rabbit-hunting. Suddenly a farmer appeared at the end of the field shouting furiously and waving his pitchfork. They all looked at me for guidance. I gave it. I fled. I got to my office and had just wiped the sweat from my brow when the Battery Clerk appeared in my doorway -
"Mr. Smith, local farmer, to see you sir."
"Good afternoon Mr. Smith. Do sit down. What can I do for you?"
"Your bloody soldiers have been trespassing and poaching on my land, that's wot"
"Oh dear. Very serious. (Anxiously) Could you recognise any of them?"
"No! - except the one leading them was a little runt."
"Ah! I'll investigate, Mr. Smith. Rest assured I'll find the culprits and deal with them."
I never went poaching again.
One of our officers who had been educated at public school, found Stowe College not far away and arranged for us to play a cricket match. We got together an eleven clad in army shirts, battledress trousers and ammunition boots and were met by our hosts clad in spotless white and cricket caps. After a splendid tea we went out to field and then I heard in the far distance the familiar "pop-pop" of a Norton 500. The dispatch rider strode across the field and delivered the dispatch to me. "Red alert. Return immediately." Since the message was classified "Top Secret" all I could do was thank our hosts and depart without explanation.
Then I was off in my recce jeep and two dispatch riders on motor cycles, heading for Tilbury Docks where they examined our vehicles for waterproofing efficiency, issued us with emergency rations and a tin each of self-heating soup, a bag vomit, soldier, Mark I. The latter were just like vehicle wheel inner tubes only much lighter and served as pillows and loot bags for the rest of the campaign.
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That's got to be the funniest chapter so far. That lad with fiancees in every town cracked me up. Imagine using carbon paper to duplicate letters! These days, I guess soldiers just cut 'n' paste copy into various social networks! The opportunity for polygamy that web2.0 technologies have provided is incredible! Someone should do some research to see if people have become more free with their marriage proposals since Facebook...
On a serious note, censorship must've not only been boring, but put Granddad in a strange position of knowing the intimacies of all his troops. Before I read this, I'd assumed there was some kind of central censoring office where a bunch of clerks in horn-rimmed specs sat with a pristine pot of red biros each - that would never come into contact with the troops. I wonder what secrets Granddad knew about the guys who fought with him? And it must've taken a lot of dedication to keep them to himself too.
Anyway, don't you just love that story with the farmer? The only thing missing is a stereotypical holler of "GERRORF MY LARND!!!". I think that little tale, while funny, also illustrates the nervous tension that arose from just waiting to invade. Rabbits are as good a distraction as any.
Finally, the cricket story is lovely. I like to think the captain of the village side was a Victor Meldrew type who was left spluttering in the oval, waving a fist in the direction of Granddad's departing jeep! (Soundtrack would probably be a gentle reprise of the A-Team theme tune.)
Anyway, that brings Chapter 1 to an end. And I'm double-posting today to make up for my shoddiness of recent weeks, so we'll be "fighting them on the beaches" in a matter of minutes...
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