How Britain Kept Calm and Carried On (16 page)

An investigation revealed that an army dental depot had reported losing a box marked in just that way but which in fact was used to store single dentures.

He could only say that the next time they stored teeth in this way, they should make them into full sets. At least the invaders could bite the Germans to death.

Mrs C. Murphy, Rotherham

In 1942, I did my first six weeks’ training at Sowerby Bridge. Then, us soldiers destined for the Royal Signals had to stay in a large unused warehouse, ready for
transport to Folkestone for nine months’ signals training. This particular evening, about one hundred of us rookies got together talking and, to my surprise, I found three other men who, like
me, worked for the Gas, Light and Coke Company and were all fitters. We had much in common. Suddenly, in came the sergeant and said: ‘You lot – get a bed for tonight and shut
up!’

The four of us went to the end beds and I took the fourth from the wall. During the night the NAAFI was broken into and thousands of cigarettes were stolen. We were all suspects and, first thing
next morning, it was: ‘Stand by your beds and bring out your kitbags!’

Nothing was found, so the sergeant said: ‘Right, we’ll question you all separately.’

The sergeant and two civilian police, trilby hats, pencils and pads at the ready, picked our corner in which to start. The sergeant asked the questions – name, service number, home address
and occupation. Number one interviewee answered them all, finishing with his occupation: ‘Gas fitter, Gas, Light and Coke Company.’

Number two gave his answers and, of course, the same occupation. The trio looked at one another, but said nothing. When number three gave the same answer – ‘Gas fitter, Gas, Light
and Coke Company’ – the sergeant and his colleagues weren’t amused.

Now it was my turn. This time, one of the detectives asked the questions. When he got to ‘occupation’, he was clearly irritated: ‘Now, go on! Say you’re a bloody gas
fitter and work for the bloody Gas, Light and Coke Company!’

In a low voice I replied: ‘Well, actually, yes, I do!’

The warehouse exploded with delight. The detective threw his pencil and pad on the floor and jumped on them.

He shouted at the rest: ‘If any more of you claim to be gas fitters with the Gas, Light and Coke Company, we’ll have to start again.’ It was quite a job to convince them that
the lot of us hadn’t got together and decided to become gas fitters that morning.

H. Walters, Southend-on-Sea

I was called up into the Royal Artillery (searchlights), probably as a judgement on me for taking the mickey out of them during the pre-war training, as they never seemed to get
anything in the beam. What a boring life! There were some characters, though, and I’ll never forget them.

We had a young Londoner who was very dim and talked through his teeth. I say he was dim. Before the war he’d been a bookie’s runner and he could tell you how much was due to you for
a shilling each way if you won at odds of 31–7.

Anyway, one morning the NCO detailed him to fill all the hurricane lamps with paraffin. Off he went, but soon came back and said he couldn’t do it because there was no paraffin. The NCO
said: ‘Quite correct, but the paraffin is being delivered this afternoon. Until then, go around the site and clean all the glasses.’

Our friend thought very hard for a moment – always a dangerous thing for him – then replied: ‘OK, but it won’t take me very long. I can only think of two men on the site
who wear glasses.’

A. J. Johnson, Solihull

Between 1941 and 1943 I was stationed near Thurso, Caithness, in the very north of Scotland. During the worst of one terrible winter, with several inches of snow on the ground,
I was transferred to Brechin. There were huge delays on the railway line and it took me hours to get through to my new posting. An officer welcomed me and said that I’d done very well just to
get there. When he checked my papers he was astonished to find that I hadn’t had any leave for about a year, so I was given a week’s leave and set off on a really difficult journey to
Derby and the wife I hadn’t seen for a year.

It took me about twenty-four hours to make the trip through the snow, and when I finally arrived there was a telegram waiting for me. I was being called back to Brechin immediately. So I
travelled back to Brechin – it was another very long trip and some trains had to be dug out of the snow – and reported for duty, whereupon I was told that my unit, stationed near
Thurso, had called me back. So I went back there, again experiencing all the vagaries of the Scottish weather and more delays, and eventually reported to my original commanding officer.

‘Yes,’ the officer said, ‘the reason we’ve called you back is that we’ve been looking at your records and we see that you haven’t had any leave for over a
year. Why don’t you take a week’s leave and report back to us before going to Brechin?’ So I set off for Derby again. I was travelling the best part of the week, and I never did
go to Brechin. I returned to my original unit and remained with them.

Tim Ward, Barton under Needwood, Staffordshire

I managed to get on an intensive course on radar at Blackpool Tech. There were about 110 of us altogether and we were a motley lot. Every Friday morning we paraded right along
the front at Blackpool. This was a sight to be believed as we were chosen for our educational record, rather than for our soldierliness! The full sergeant in charge used to take us and one Friday
he told us he’d had enough. We must do better or else. He boomed: ‘Hold your heads up, swing your arms – and look ahead. No point in looking down. They’re too bloody mean in
Blackpool to leave threepenny bits in the gutter!’

A. J. Johnson, Solihull

Sam Weller – his parents may have been fans of Charles Dickens – was an airman stationed at Diamond Harbour, near Calcutta. A mysterious tropical illness had left
him completely bald with, quite literally, not a hair on his head. Eventually he was issued with a service wig, whispy, stringy and straggly. On his first day off after acquiring the wig, Weller
went into Calcutta in his best starched bush jacket, slacks and solar pith helmet. Walking down a busy main street thronged with fellow servicemen, he felt a tap on his shoulder.

Turning, he was confronted by a military policeman who snapped: ‘Airman, haircut, you.’

Weller swept off his helmet with one hand, his wig with the other, to reveal a bald head glinting in the sunshine.

‘Oh, so you think so?’ he replied.

A. F. Dawn, Derby

I was travelling north on a train full of soldiers and we were approaching Preston. Trains almost always stopped for several minutes at Preston and there was a great place for
tea if you were quick – but if you weren’t quick you’d never get served. As the train came into Preston station, it slowed down to stop. One soldier was standing right by the
door. His boots were already off but he took tea orders from two or three others and hopped off the train as it rolled to a stop. He sprinted for the tea stall in his socks. He’d gone about
ten paces when the train suddenly, surprisingly, picked up pace again and headed north. The soldier on the platform stopped running and looked back in horror as everybody shouted through the window
at him: ‘Keep mine warm until I get back’ and ‘Extra sugar in mine.’

Tim Ward, Barton under Needwood, Staffordshire

I had a spell at Catterick and we were in huts built about fifty years earlier. They had been designed to sleep about eighteen men, but since we were in double bunks they now
housed around sixty. So with blackouts in place, the atmosphere was rather overpowering to say the least.

In the still of the night, one of the chaps broke wind rather noisily. His bedfellow on the top bunk rebuked him and said: ‘What do you want to do that for? It’s bad enough in here
anyway!’

His mate replied: ‘What are you beefing about? You have to fart in here for a breath of fresh air!’

A. J. Johnson, Solihull

I was a Japanese POW sent to help build a runway on the outskirts of Makassar on the island of Celebes. During the
yasmi
– rest period – one of the lads
came across a hoard of toilet soap in a Jap hut and promptly secreted a bar away in a little pouch which he had suspended under his crotch, hoping to beat the inevitable search when we arrived back
at camp. On the way back it began to rain – one of those typical torrential downpours in the Far East – and we were ordered to ‘run, run . . . quicklee’. The faster he ran,
the more luxurious the lather produced by the friction of the soldier’s legs. It was the whitest of white trails ever blazed in the Far East.