My Life by Lionel Graves. (Page 9)
Back at school I thought long and hard about the future, national service loomed but also the chance, one in ten, of being picked out as a Bevin boy and being made to go to a coal mining pit and trained as a miner. The thought of that scared me to death so I had an interview with Mr. Bentley our house master and asked if I could go along to the recruiting office which was just on the corner of Angel place and the Butts. He asked if I had parental permission at which I lied and said yes and then he gave me permission. On calling at the office I was given a very cursory medical inspection and eye test. I couldn't see the top letter with my weak right eye but had memorized the letters half way down before taking my glasses off. I was informed that I passed A1 and in the fittest category. Incidentally on demob I had a similar medical and without cheating on the eye test I was graded C3, pity I couldn't claim a disability pension.
I put down my choice of service as 1, The Royal Artillery and 2 The Royal Armoured Corps. The recruiting officer gave me a five shilling postal order (worth 25p today) which was the equivalent of the old King's shilling and had to swear on oath of loyalty on a bible. A letter came later to 14492516 Pre Graves L M General Service Corps granting me deferment until Sept 1944 to finish my Higher Cert Exams. The D Day invasion was 6th June 1944 so fate played another part in my life.
I had to report to the 30 Primary Training Wing of the RAC at Bovington Camp, Dorset in September. There was a good cross section of 18 year olds, some had had jobs, others still at school, public, grammar and secondary. I met one Irish lad, a volunteer, who spent hours going on about the beastly English Black and Tans who had shot his grandmother during the troubles in the 20's. The troops were called that because they wore black uniforms at night and khaki during the day. Apparently his grandmother had broken the curfew and gone out after dark, yet he still volunteered! Possibly to get training for the IRA. The lad in the bunk above mine cried himself to sleep the first night.
The first few weeks was general infantry training and square bashing as drill was called. I got told off for not shaving every day, in fact I used to only do it every three days. The usual assault courses and bayonet drill, charging straw dummies and sticking bayonets into them, shrieking like mad. Climbing long ropes in boots and carrying a rifle. Stripping and firing the Bren Gun and being fired over with live bullets while crawling under 18inch high barbed wire. The one I disliked most was crawling along in a mine field and probing with a bayonet and feeling it hit the metal of a mine the size of a dinner plate. You knew they were not live but they fixed them up up attached to thunder flashes like huge bangers which went off with an almighty bang in your face. I had to scrape round under it, to check it was not booby trapped and then lift it gently, unscrew the plug and remove the detonator. Talk about shaking hands.
They gave us aptitude tests to see which branch of the service we were most suited for. I had to repair a bicycle pump, which I couldn't, put workings of a lock together, which I couldn't, so I just bundled them in and closed the lid and when the instructor picked it up they all fell out. However I must have done better at the intelligence test because when interviewed by the personnel officer I told him I would like to join a Reconnaissance Corps Assault Troop, he turned me down and sent me to Farnborough, near Aldershot, which was an RAC camp split between tanks and recce armoured cars.
The Camp at Farnborough was next door to the Aircraft Research station and early jets and delta wing planes were always buzzing about and sometimes crashing with very loud bangs.
Figure 1. During basic training at Farnborough 1945. Figure 2.Qualified driver/operator Reconnaissance Corps.
My Army Pay Book 64. Click to view
Email: Lionel Graves (lionel@graf-tek.com).
Copyright ©2000-2008 L. Graves. All Rights Reserved.
