The good old days, or where they? Sometimes we look back and believe that times were better when we were young, but realistically times were hard and our parents struggled to survive and I was born in war time so nothing was easy. My Dad was a Chief Petty Officer in the Royal Navy and had served on many ships, including one that was involved with sinking the Bismark. In 1943 he decided that leaving the Navy and joining the Fleet Air Arm would be a good idea and he was posted to Eastleigh airport which is now known as Southampton Airport. The runway had old oil drums placed on it to stop the Germans landing on the runway and a single machine gun was mounted at the airport as their only form of defence. A German Bomber plane came back from London with two bombs still onboard and dropped them on the first and second hangers, just by luck my Dad was in the third one at the time and escaped injury. He was awarded the British Empire Medal by the King at the end of the war for "
Devotion to Duty"
. My Mum and I attended the ceremony at Buckingham Palace and I still remember the occasion although I was only three at the time.
His Dad (my Granddad) was a member of the 3rd Hussars and was given the command of 'Rough Rider,"
this meant he broke the horses in for the Regiment, so he must have been a tough cookie. Horses were broken the hard way in those times, not as they are done in the UK now. I must have inherited this 'gene' from him because I started riding horses in my teens and when my daughters were 6 and 7 years of age I started them riding ponies as well. They were bought more ponies as they got taller and eventually we had seven horses for them and me to ride. I bought a livery yard with a riding stables with 48 stables and we all rode and attended showjumping competitions in our spare time, both girls became successful at showjumping and I ended up being their groom and adviser at competitions. Their bedroom walls were literally covered in rossette's and cups scattered about the house and my Caroline was honoured to enter a showjumping competition for the Pony Club at Hickstead, my Jeni amonst her many other wins won a major Cross Country competition in Surrey which had dozens of entries and worked hard on a long course to become the eventual winner. Currently my Grandson and Granddaughter have taken up riding as well, so the habit has now covered a few generations of our family, needless to say they are now doing showjumping!
So going back to my Granddad, he fought in the Boar War in Khartoum and was sent out on a patrol to fight the "
Fuzzi Wuzzis,"
this all went fine until his patrol were surrounded by them and rather than be shot to pieces the patrol surrendered to them, I believe they knew that surrendering was safe. They were taken back to the Fuzzy Wuzzis lines and stripped of their weapons and uniforms, they didn't have any facilities for keeping prisoners and so our Great British patrol was sent back to their own lines in their Long John's. After arriving at the British lines looking a bit worse for wear, the MO was called for and every man was inspected for sabre wounds or bullet holes and if none were found they were put on a charge for not fighting the enemy. It so happened that Lord Kitchener was in attendance at the time and my Granddad had the onerous privilege of being put "
on a charge"
by the famous man!! As many of you may know he advertised for recruits on a big poster that was sent all around the country and entitled "
Your Country Needs You."
With all this knowledge entrusted to me during my youth it should have been my honour to be a member of the armed forces, but nothing could have further from the truth. The very thought of it worried the heck out of me and I was working at a printing establishment in London as an Apprentice Compositor, with a six year indenture contract. We all attended the The College of Printing and took our exams whilst working during the day, some of the time we had to work as the boy outside the overseers office, this meant we were always running errands around the firm and getting the overseers their "
dripping toast"
from a local cafe. The head overseer was Mr LeComber and he was often to be seen sniffing snuff off the back of his hand, I tried it a few times and always ended up sneezing it all over the place. On the day I finished my apprenticeship I entered the overseers office at 12.50, to which Mr LeComber said "
what do want laddie,"
he called all us apprentices laddie and I informed him that today was my last day as an apprentice, to which he replied "
stand outside laddie, I will be with you shortly."
Five minutes later he appeared and said "
come on laddie,"
we then headed up three flights of stairs while he called me laddie all the time, we entered the office of the works manager and he congratulated me on completing my apprenticeship and gave me my indentures. Me and Mr LeComber then left his office and he called me Mr all the way the stairs to the composing department, I was now a journeyman and this obviously carried the privilege of being called Mr. After returning to the composing department the business of the traditional "
bang out"
had to be performed and luckily for me it was all done by me and the Father of the Chapel walking the whole length of the composing room (about 100 yards) whilst everyone banged something that made a noise. This was in stark contrast to what happened in the press room where they stripped the poor encumbant naked and covered his essentials in bronze blue ink. This ink would not come off once applied and had to wear off as the weeks rolled by. When the ceremony had finished in the press room the poor soul had his hands and feet secured with string and put in a small truck, put in the lift and sent to the warehouse where the place was full women!!!
But on the bright side if I decided to go in the forces they would shorten my apprenticeship to 5 years, that was very kind of them but still didn't encourage me to join voluntarily. My pal Ken who was a fellow apprentice compositor decided to go in and cut his apprenticeship short, on his return he told me that whilst training they made him clean a toilet with his tooth brush. As you can imagine this did nothing to encourage me to join, even if I had kept a spare toothbrush for such occasions. Then the magic day arrived in 1958, what magic I hear you say, well the day the government in their wisdom finished conscription, what a day to celebrate, so I did with one of my cousins who equally didn't want to join.
My Dad and my uncles had very little to threaten us with any more, no more of looking at a map of the world and telling us that everything coloured red was the British Empire and that the sun would never set on it all at the same time. How were their sons going to grow up without the onslaught of some RSM ordering them around and making "
real men of them?"
Well we have all done alright thank you, I haven't missed cleaning a toilet with my toothbrush one bit!!