My Life by Lionel Graves. (Page 27)

 

During my time in Egypt I qualified for a month's leave at home called LIAP or leave in addition to Python.  Whilst on the troop ship sailing through the Mediterranean I celebrated my 21st birthday, 1947.  It must have been  on 4th May I was leaning over the ship's rail drinking a can of beer and talking to another sergeant and told him, “I'm 21 today”.  “Good luck mate”, was his reply and that was my coming of age party.

 

Time soon passed and my demobilisation number 63 came up.  The company officer asked me if I would like to sign on for a longer period, but though I was now a war substantive sergeant and couldnt be down graded unless I was court martialled I gracefully declined, chances of promotion to a Warrant Officer Class II were slight.  I had to do a stock taking at the library and found about a hundred books missing.  Luckily a batch of books meant for the Red Cross library was delivered to me by mistake, so I just stamped them all and entered them in my library making up the numbers to the requisite amount before anyone could claim them!  We also had the opportunity of buying a Swiss watch, completely legitimately from a batch sent to the hospital.  The sergeant storeman gave me a pair of sheets to take home, illegitimately.

 

Jumping back in time to our Abbasia days a crowd of us were going out to the NAAFI and taking a short cut across some railway sidings with parked goods wagons.  We were cutting through the trucks, bent double when there was a sudden loud clanking noise up ahead as if the trucks just about to move.  As I was right in the middle, underneath a truck and between the wheels, my life flashed before my eyes as I thought they were beginning to move.  I jerked up in terror, cracked my head on some buffers and literally fell out of the other side, to the great amusement of the others, of course it was another train load of wagons altogether, higher up the line.

 

I can't remember any wild debauched farewell parties before leaving, staff were leaving all the time and it was a bit of an anti climax.  The trip home to Liverpool in December was uneventful, we had Christmas Day at sea.  On disembarking I had the usual heavy load of kitbag, big pack and handgrip with all my worldly belongings and presents, enough to make the knees buckle.  I was fed up going through customs and when asked if anything to declare just said, “Only a couple of hundred cigarettes and Christmas presents for the family”.  I must have looked so dejected he took pity on me and marked my kitbag with a big white chalk cross, which was the sign “all clear”, and I was through with 1000 cigarettes in tins of 50, they were hermatically sealed and when the lid was taken off and the seal of thin metal was punctured there was a lovely hissing sound of escaping air.

 

We went to the demob centre in York, there were only a couple of RAMC with me from the hospital, one going to Kidderminster. At the centre we handed in all our army stuff except for great coats and what we were wearing, then in cardboard boxes were given a civvy suit, hat, shoes, shirts and under wear, all free as a reward for our sterling service for King and Country.

 

Then by train to Worcester where I arrived after midnight, on previous occasions for 48 or 72hrs leave I sometimes used the YMCA but outside Shrub Hill station because it was impossible to get to Tenbury after the last train and there wasn't enough traffic to hitchhike.  Having got my demob pay I decided to get the taxi to Tenbury and woke them all up for a warm welcome in the small hours of the morning.

 

During my month's demob leave I went on a week's Education Course at Swindon, visited London and saw “Annie Get Your Gun”. Then applied to Bristol for a degree course but not accepted, then Durham for a four year degree/education course, interviewed but not accepted, finally applied for a 2 year education teacher's training course starting in Sept 1950, still at Bede College and was accepted.

 

As I wanted to earn something I went to the Education Office in Worcester and was interviewed by a Miss Jex who was in charge of staffing in the county.  She offered me a post at Martley, which I accepted, but a couple of weeks later I got a letter suggesting that a change to Lindridge CE School which was only five miles from Tenbury might suit me better. As I would have had to stay in digs at Martley. I jumped at the offer, fate again.

 

 

 

..\My Pictures\RMS Arundel Castle.jpg

Troop ships.

 

..\My Pictures\SS Chitral.jpg

 

 

 

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Email: Lionel Graves (lionel@graf-tek.com).

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