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| Caterham Barracks |
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| 1877----1960 |
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| My Introduction to Life in the Guards (continued) When Saturday afternoon arrived there was an air of excited expectancy in the hut as we all got dressed in our �best� BD, boots, anklets, and our flipping great cheese cutter caps! Oh to get to the Training Battalion where our peaks would be cut to a respectable guardsman�s pattern - we referred to the peaks on those SD caps as �LP�s because we all felt as if we had the major part of a long playing record stuck out over our face. In those days of gramophones and vinyl records, there was the small �45� type which could be found on juke boxes, then the everyday �78� which held one number on each side, and a bigger one known as an LP because it played for longer, and held more. When we had subjected each other to a minute inspection, we split up into twos and threes (no recruit would be tolerated at the Barrack gate if he approached on his own) And then - �girding our loins� we set off bravely for the beginning of the long road leading up past the main Parade ground, where we quickened our pace, swinging our arms, keeping our wits about us just I case (God forbid!) we should by chance encounter an officer and have to salute him, shouting out �one, two, three, four, five, down, swing!� We never stopped shouting out the accompaniment with every movement we made on the square - until we reached the week of our Passing Out Parade. As we marched smartly up towards the Guardroom at the top of the driveway, we could see the figure of the Sgt of the Guard waiting for us (�Please God�) I thought to myself � for it was common practice for the Sgt to find some minor point wrong in Recruits' turn out and send them all doubling back to adjust ourselves in preparation for yet another attempt!. �Up!� called our predetermined �spokesman, and three pairs of boots 'crashed' to a halt in front of the Sgt. We all in turn, shouted out our number, rank, name, and squad instructor�s name as we were inspected by the Coldstream Guards Sgt - ( I never forgot his description or regiment, and can envisage him now- it�s like never forgetting the registration number of your first car!) With a curt �off you go lads, don�t be late back � 1959hrs sharp!� we were allowed out of the gates for the first time in six weeks, and made out way eagerly over to the bus stop there to wait impatiently for that chugging bus which would take us down to the delights of Croydon! (the limit of the permitted area within which we had to stay whilst out of Barracks). I will always remember that trip down to Croydon and the magical sounding name of the main road - �The Purley Way� When we got off the bus, we noticed a big cinema frontage on the opposite side of the road, but our meagre funds would not have allowed us entry, even had we the time to indulge in such luxuries as film shows. I found out later that the cinema was The Davis Theatre, one of the biggest cinemas in the country at that time - seating hundreds, and boasting of a caf� balcony. I wanted to get a photograph done for my parents, so they could see their �soldier son� in uniform, and I went into a large department store called Kennard�s where there was a photographer�s studio. I had been saving up for this occasion so, despite the session costing me the fairly large amount of 3/6d , I posed willingly while the chap took my photo. I resisted his attempts to get me to remove my cap (no one was going to see my shaven head just yet!). I had to pick up my photos a couple of hours later, which would put a bit of pressure on me, restricting my wanderings, but I still managed to visit the army canteen down a side street with the other lads, to pay our respects at the afternoon �hop� being held in the East Surreys� Drill hall � although dancing was out of the question for us, as we were not allowed anywhere near the dance floor with our heavy, studded ammo boots on of course! - however, we were grateful for the teas and wads handed to us for gratis - (probably because we had mentioned we were all on Boys� service?) Time flew of course (we only had a total of 6 hours freedom after all) and very soon our wanderings had to come to an end - a couple of our number had made �arrangements� for the following week, but that date was doomed to failure, as we were all destined to be confined to Barracks - after a double innoculation session (again!). A few of us had picked up photographs from Kennards, and we all agreed that they were �good value for money� � I put all three of mine in an envelope back in the barrack hut, and decided that they would be sent to my Grandma and Mum at the next opportunity to write a letter home. Arriving back at the depot, we sorted ourselves out into pairs again, and marched smartly back through the gate and slammed our tabs in, as we approached the barrack Guard Sgt sitting behind his desk in the Guard Room, pen poised for action. There were no complaints, and we all went marching back down the drive to our barrack hut, encased in the warm glow from the Sgt who had complimented us all on arriving back in barracks with twenty minutes to spare. It was a little like arriving back home when we entered the barrack hut, to be greeted by our TS with �fold your best BD up carefully lads , and give your boots a clean up, don�t forget you have got Church Parade tomorrow morning!� I laid in bed that night after �Lights Out� reliving that first taste of freedom, and relishing the thoughts about the pleasure that the photographs would give back home (I hoped). I started thinking about some of the characters who had made the most impression on me during my first few weeks of Army life (apart from the TS and Sgt Smith our Squad Instructor) and wondered how many of them would figure in my future. First and foremost was Wally Walker, a friend of mine from schooldays in Leeds, who had been just as keen to don army uniform. He was in the Coldstream Guards, but not for long � in just a short while, his mother would secure his discharge on the grounds of him �forging� her signature of consent for his enlistment! When he left, he made remarks in the vein of �See you soon Butch� (my schooldays nickname) - he eventually persuaded his parents to agree to his re-enlistment, this time in The Welsh Guards - to be with me I suppose, but by that time, my ambitions were firmly fixed on escaping from that 'foreign' regiment to join The Grenadier Guards. In 1958 Wally and I were Drum Majors on The Queen�s Birthday Parade � in The Welsh Guards and Grenadiers respectively � when we told the story of our change round to Micky Stone (the Garrison Sgt Major) during a brief break for tea during our Drum Majors� training week with him; he thought the twist was a hoot! We had a strange little boy in our squad called Peter Billyield, who had come all the way from British Guyana to enlist in The Irish Guards of all things! His strange accent marked him out for special attention from the emerging bully boys in the squad, and I remember one occasion when they stung him up to the roof trussing of the hut, leaving him there to miss a dinner meal, they thought it a huge jape, but tougher times were just round the corner for the poor little chap, and they made his life hell before he finally escaped their clutches at the conclusion of our Depot Training, and departed for Lingfield and The Irish Guards training battalion on the. racecourse there (wonder what happened to him?) The demand of the recent hostilities for extra army accommodation had caused some strange requisitions as a result, and The Welsh Guards training battalion was based on a racecourse also -- Sandown Park in Esher, Surrey. The bullies �hunted in a pack� and were about 5 or 6 boys from the mining areas of South Wales, they seemed determined to stamp their mantle of control over all in the squad, and that �knock about� existence sucked me in also for the next year, making my life intolerable until I took up boxing! (see my other stories). I must have dozed off with Billyield on my mind, because I had a fitful night�s sleep that night (could have been the excitement generated by our visit to Croydon though?) On Sunday morning after breakfast, we paraded outside the hut. along with the other Boys� squads, and were duly marched up to the Depot chapel for the obligatory church parade. A couple of lads had gone elsewhere in the Barracks, because they were �arsees� as some Welsh wag told us. Of course they were Roman Catholic boys who went to their own church down in the �Fox� lines somewhere for Sunday Mass. I had always been encouraged by my parents in my religious upbringing, and at the outbreak of war as very young soprano had just passed my audition to become a probationer in the choir of Leeds Parish Church, under the wing of the notorious Dr Melville Cook, a well known Organist and Master of choristers in those days. Eventually the outbreak of WWII and my subsequent evacuation "to a place of safety" knocked that on the head for me, but I joined a little village choir instead in the town where I was fostered.. As I sat in the Depot chapel that day looking along the rows of shaven heads sported by the hundreds of Recruits sat in their regimental groups, I started to feel part of an elite brotherhood, which the stirring music from The Band oaf the Coldstream Guards contributed helped in no small measure! Apart from the satisfaction I derived from those church parades in a comradely way, I felt also the fresh awakenings of a dormant religious calling which was to stay with me for the rest of my life��. A life which promised to be fruitful in many ways, and with so many exciting moments along its long winding path! Continue |
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| Copyright � 2006 Rodney J Angell- Baker |
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| Pre-war boy chorister 1939 |
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| 10 years old evacuee in May 1940 |
| Photo taken at Kennards |
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