-  148 Battery-68th Regiment / Royal Regiment of Artillery  -

"DAYS OF OUR LIVES "

Dinner was served midday in the army. We queued as usual, and were given some sort of meat pie, a few vegetables, steam pudding and custard. Again on the inevitable tray, with the inevitable witch p**s. (tea.) A smartly dressed officer, one pip (2nd. Lieut.) was walking around this day. He wasn’t in his best blues, he had I believe No. 2 Dress, in that he had on a 'Sam Browne.' This was a broad leather belt around his waist, with a thin belt attached on his left, going over his right shoulder, very highly polished and crossing over his chest.

I have never known anyone to speak so ‘Posh!'

“Wet is the meorl lake?”  (What is the meal like?)

We had been warned to never complain about Army food! We heard that one chap at Oswestry said the porridge was cold, and the Officer said that it wouldn’t be cold tomorrow morning. He had the lad up half the night stoking the fires. “It’s Lovely Sir” we said in unison.”"Hoy Ged”  (Oh Good)  he replied. How on earth do some of them learn to speak like that?

We went back to barracks and flopped down on our beds, waiting to be called outside. This particular day we went to the tailors. Once again the inevitable queuing up, where the tailor put chalk marks all over our uniforms, ready for altering. Then we went to see a film about warning us of mutiny. In fact during my two years service, we were often read out Queens regulations, all aimed at behaving ourselves.

 One day runs into the next in the Army. One day is very much like another, a lot of the time bored to tears. One day at Oswestry we had a film show... I remember the title “Nine Men”. Nine men cut off in the desert, now a classic. One incident I must speak of. We were always told to be careful of loose women! I remember we were called to have a FFI test (Free From Infection.) This was an inspection of  our “Small Arms!”

One day we were in the lecture room, and a Sergeant in the Education Corps spoke to us of the evils of sex. This is quite true. He said, “You’re out of the Army,and you’ve been a bit of a lad with the girls, and you’re walking on the causeway with a new girlfriend. You think this is strange.... one leg is shorter than the other? I must have a foot in the gutter? You look down and you see that your foot has dropped off !  ...SYPHILIS!”  

He then went on to explain the treatment for VD: “They push an instrument up your willie, something like a folded down umbrella, and when it’s right in, they open it up and drag it out!”He frightened us half to death!  One lad said he’d never have sex again, and another said he’d never touch himself, either. The Army is certainly an eye opener. The days go by...Blanco, Brasso, polishing, cleaning the barrack room, learning to salute, and drill, drill, drill...