Extracts from the Audio Memoirs of Major LWA Lyons - Training - Part One - 1939-40

War was declared on a Sunday. I remember Leslie Bloomfield and I were rowing on the river at Coddam (Suffolk) that day. There had been radio broadcasts telling everybody to carry their respirators, so on the Monday everyone went to work carrying them in boxes. I, of course, kept trying to join the army. At Colchester there was a medical board of 12 doctors, who examined your ears, eyes, heart, movement of limbs and all the rest of it. They quickly detected the fact that I was deaf in one ear. They simply said ‘rejected…’
The recruiting Sergeant said,
‘Well you’re lucky…off you go back to your job…’
I was thoroughly cheesed of; all I wanted was to go and see the fun of the war.

Back at work the next day, we received the list from the ministry, of all the people who were in reserved occupations, and my name was on it. People were congratulating each other at not having to join up. This, I thought, was a pretty terrible spirit to have. So I couldn’t see much hope of me joining up. I tried other recruitment centres, but they all had the same rigorous medical board procedure.

Then a miraculous thing happened…just like in a fairy tale.

I was in London one day, I can’t remember why, perhaps I was hoping to see the air raids begin. Anyway I was walking down Regents Street, and there was this girl in ATS uniform on the other side of the road, waving in my direction. I looked behind me and there was no one there. Perhaps, I thought, she was waving at me. She dashed across the road and stood in front of me blocking my path.
‘There’ she said ‘you don’t even recognise me do you’
Suddenly I remembered,
‘Ah…Maggie Dunn’
She was my old childhood friend. We used to play no end together, in Egypt.
‘Are you on leave?’ she said.
‘No’ I replied, and told her the sad story.
‘Oh you don’t need to worry about that…you can join our mob’
‘Well, what is your mob?’
‘The Intelligence Corps, the secret service and all that. You can join now. Come with me and I’ll take you to meet my Major, he’ll be delighted. There will be a war in the Middle East and people who speak Arabic are in great demand’
So she took me to this flat were this Major questioned me.
‘Right then’ he said to Maggie ‘you’d better go and test him’
All the rooms of this flat were occupied by people being questioned or tested in various languages, so we went into the bathroom. We spoke for a while in Arabic and she then told me that I had passed the test.
So I was in! They gave me a letter to take back to the medical board instructing them to enlist me by order of the Army Council.

So I said goodbye to all my colleagues at Crittalls, and off I went to start the standard 16-week infantry training with the Hampshire Regiment, on the Isle of Wight, at Parkhurst barracks, right next door to the jail.

There were 7 others in my platoon who were also in the Intelligence Corps. The others were mostly cockneys, two of whom had been in borstal. They were most interesting people and spoke with such love and affection for their time there. They looked upon it as their old school.
In the platoon opposite, the other side of the landing, were the P.O.’s (Potential Officers) who were supposed to be suitable to go and train as officers, but who somehow didn’t seem to be getting there. Unfortunately there was a reason for this, and it wasn’t a very good reason at all. Well you see, all these NCOs (Non Commissioned Officers), who were training us, had North West Frontier medals and Palestine Medals; they were all old soldiers. Apparently most of them were due to be discharged just before the war began but they were tempted into signing on again, by being told that the moment war began they would be immediately taken to the officers training colleges and be given jobs as Company Commanders and so on and so forth. But in the event the army said ‘Oh no your valuable people for training’ and so they ended up here. This meant that they all had a chip on their shoulder, and they were in consequence very slow to recommend any of the PO’s to go up for an interview.

We had a fairly decent Sergeant named Smith. A little man, strange sort of fellow really, with two teeth missing, but he trained us very well.

Firstly, as new recruits, we had to get used to being ripped off. We went to the quartermasters to be kitted out. I knew that my uniform should be an exact size three. I was given a battledress, which was hopelessly large. All the others had been given uniforms either too large or too tight. Then a fellow, this NCO, came in and said,
‘You don’t have to worry, the tailoring staff can alter them tomorrow, for a very small charge’
I knew what the racket was straight away…the rookie rip off!

Next up was the barber, and the regimental haircut. Many people weren’t happy about having their hair chopped off and there was a notice on the barber’s wall. The standard army hair cut was free, but for those who were prepared to pay, the following applied,

MODIFIED HAIRCUT (complying with regulations) - Sixpence
CIVILIAN STYLE (complying with regulations) - 1 Shilling
FANCY STYLE (complying with regulations) - Half a Crown

So you see they were on the make. I suppose in a way you couldn’t blame them, but they were paid so much for every haircut, so this extra charge seemed like a shark like stunt to me.

We started our training; firing the Bren-gun, rifle drill, bayonet fighting, route marches and all the rest of it. We Intelligence Corps people also had motorcycle training and pistol shooting. Before our first route march Sergeant Smith gave us some advice.
‘I took the advice of an old soldier’ he said, ‘and poured hot water into my boots and left it swilling about, then put them on just before the march, with the water still in them’
I took his advice, and he was absolutely right. There is no better way of making boots fit then bye soaking them and then marching them dry.

Funny fellow this chap Smith, we didn’t know it at first, but he was a homosexual. Not a passive one, but an active one. One night after he had been drinking, he came into our barracks after lights out. He put the lights on and went around looking at people. He pulled back peoples blankets to examine them. He pulled off my blankets, and had a look. I grabbed my blankets back and he went on to the next bed, then on to the other side of the barrack room. Then he came to the last bed were Bobby Neal slept. Bobby woke up, smiled, then jumped out of bed, and off they went. He was a great passive homosexual was Bobby Neal, just waiting for someone to come and take him up.

The thing though about Bobby Neal is that he was always so depressed, such a miserable character. His father was the Bishop of Buenos Aires, so he spoke very good Spanish, clever chap, Oxford Graduate and was at the outbreak of war, training to be an Actuary.

When reveille sounded in the morning, we would run outside to make our ablutions in the icy water of that cold winter of 1939-40, with the wind lashing our bodies. Anyone who hadn’t stripped to the waste was thought to be a right ninny. Then we went back to get dressed. After this there were the fatigue duties.
First of all you had to fold your bed up. (For a long time until a bed was vacant I had to sleep on three planks). The three biscuits that formed your bed were placed one on top of the other, and then the blankets folded together with a sheet in between each, so that it looked like a sandwich. These blankets were then folded around the biscuits to hold them together, the whole thing looking neat and tidy. Then somebody had to sweep the room, someone else the fireplace; there were all sorts of jobs to be done.
Then the cook house call would come. Every one lined up outside the cookhouse and there was always at least half and hours wait before we were allowed in. It didn’t matter whether it was pouring with rain or snowing we weren’t allowed in even though we could see through the windows that everything was ready. Most annoying.

The most terrible thing was the pain in the shoulders after a route march. This was caused by the heavy pack and rifle slung on your shoulders. One of the “old sweats” said that we’d get used to it. We had two “old sweats”, Irishmen, who had been in the army since they were boys and were now in their forties, they knew all the ropes, nice chaps, but cunning. You’d find, for example, before a kit inspection something would be missing, perhaps one of your gaiters. You appealed to the one of these old soldiers and he would offer to help you out.
‘Yes’ he would say ‘they’re half a crown…and I as luck would have it, I’ve a spare one’
So you gave him half a crown and he would produce a gaiter, in all probability the gaiter that you had “lost”. However, one laughed about these poor old regulars, making a bob or two extra for their beer.

Then we had a spell of leave. Now followed a sequence that I have never quite understood…and over the years I’ve thought about it time and time again.
When I came back from leave I reported to the guardroom and was told that I had to report to the orderly room. When I got there I was told that I was on a charge.
‘What on earth for?’ I asked
‘Dirty rifle…absolutely filthy rifle’
‘It can’t be, I cleaned it before I went off’
‘We don’t know about that, but we know what it’s like now, so you’ll be on parade tomorrow under company orders…nine o’clock.’
So the next day I was marched in and the orderly Sergeant dropped a “pull through” down my rifle and pulled it out bringing with it a filthy mess of green and yellow, quite stinking. The company commander said,
‘It’s absolutely disgusting, and you an Intelligence Corps man’
‘Well sir…’
‘I don’t want to hear anything further, three days CB’
As I left the room the orderly Sergeant said,
‘You’ve done well. If you had argued with that fellow you’d have got ten days CB at least’

So I got my rifle back and cleaned it meticulously…but I couldn’t understand who had done it. I told one of the Irishmen what had happened.
‘Oh’ he said ‘you’ve had your rifle lime juiced. It’s an old army trick, in India they were always doing it’
He went on to explain that if an NCO didn’t like someone, he would take the soldiers rifle and pour down the barrel a mixture of Rangoon oil and lime juice. As the old sweat said this would foul it up ‘good and proper’. Then the rifle would be replaced in the rifle rack but slightly proud of the rest, so that it would be chosen during an inspection.

I was a bit fed up really, having to start three days CB. One would think that being confined to barracks (CB) would be hardly any punishment. But three days CB didn’t mean simply being confined to barracks, it meant you got three days of “jankers”. And “jankers” is no joke.
One had to report to the guardroom on the first jankers call, at about half past six in the morning. For me now, in winter, it would be dark and I would have to dress in full service marching order with haversack, pack, respirator, rifle and fifty rounds of ammunition.
The wonderful comradeship helped out no end. There was a chap in the platoon next door who had been a cowman. He said he could be awake at any time he chose and would come and help me.
‘What about light, how will we see?’ I said.
‘I’ll get a fire going, and I’ll bring my mate to help’
And do you know, they were as good as their word.
As I lined up in the guard room with the others also on “jankers” the Sergeant said
‘Good heavens, what are you doing here, aren’t you one of the Intelligence Wallahs.’
‘Yes sir’ I replied ‘I had a lime juiced rifle.’
‘Oh that…well never mind’
Then one had to go back to the barrack and take all the clobber off and report to various places for fatigues. The best place, of course, would be the cookhouse, with plenty of food and hot cocoa. Then there was the coal fatigues, going around in a lorry filling up the coalscuttles. Doing this you could put extra coal in your own barrack room, to ensure a really good fire that night.
There was another thing that I did not know about at the time, which almost scuppered me completely. The orderly room clerk, who entered the three days CB on my conduct sheet, had used red ink. Entries in red are usually for serious crimes.

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