Working His Ticket

The amusing story of a Guardsman who beat the system and convinced the shrinks he was unfit for military service. The talk in the Nisson Hut turned, as always, from sex to the absolute bloody awful life of the British Soldier and then inevitably to the schemes for “working your ticket”, i.e. being thrown out […]

The Missing Dinner Plates

When moving from one camp to another, the awful business of handing over a complete inventory of all camp equipment to the incoming quartermaster became a nightmare. Any shortages would have to be paid for by the outgoing soldiers. Everything had to be laid out in its correct order, counted and signed for in the […]

Joining The Regiment

Finally, after fifteen weeks of training, our little squad of recruits was pronounced fit enough to join the Regiment, then in residence at Albuhera Barracks, Aldershot. There we were fitted out with Bearskin, Red tunics, Greatcoats and white webbing, the traditional uniform of the Guards. The most difficult bit of new clothing was the traditional […]

Wartime Romance

Standing on the beach on the French coast at Dunkirk, dirty, hungry and totally exhausted, being alternately machine gunned by German aeroplanes and shelled by German Artillery, in that part of the war in 1940 when all seemed lost, I was completely unaware that I would soon meet someone who would prove to be the […]

The Vintage Calvados

My host smiled as she handed me the bottle, ‘ Treat it with respect, use it as a medicine, not just for pleasure’, her words spoken in the strong earnest manner of the French farming community of the Calvados region of France. It transpired that this was one of the few remaining bottles, which her […]

The Rock

Gibraltar was a completely new posting for a Guards Regiment. Our normal postings were London, Windsor, Aldershot, and the Middle East. Not being a ‘good sailor’ meant that the sea voyage became sheer hell. Seasickness from almost the first day confined me to either the ship’s rail or the heads. In a comparatively short time, […]

The Army Knows Best

Whilst stationed in Gibraltar, I decided that marching was not really the way my career in the Army should be directed. I would be much better off in the Motor Transport section – riding was preferable to walking. One day a notice appeared stating that corporals were required for transfer to other duties, any one […]

Sandringham Duty

During that beautiful sunny summer in the early days of the War, the Welsh Guards had the pleasant duty of providing the guards for the Royal Family, whilst they enjoyed their summer break at their Sandringham Home, in the county of Norfolk. This provided a pleasant change from the continuous training designed to bring the […]

Reading The River

Lulled to sleep by the pleasant murmur of the river as it prattled and chortled over the shallows, the two boys slept the sleep of the young. Their makeshift camp, just an old scrap of tarpaulin held up by a stick at each corner, enabled them to look out in every direction, for it had […]

Learning To Be A Soldier

The system of recruits’ training in 1938 meant that individuals, on enlisting, had to wait until sufficient numbers arrived to form into a squad of about twenty. Then the training really got started. The period of waiting was always referred to as being unsquadded’. When asked by an NCO or officer who you were, the […]

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