TO BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING … …

It is always said that we only ever remember the good times. Well, I’ve been racking my brain, and do you know, I can’t remember any bad times! I can remember lots of funny times though, so I will tell you some of those.

My actual life in uniform (which continues to this day would you believe?) began with the TA, and went downhill from then on. I will start with those early days, when life was easier, and later on will catch up with the SCLI in all it’s glory.

It all started way back in 1957 (remember 1957? That’s when the Government was on our side). Together with a group of friends, we decided that rather than wait to be called up, what we would do was to join the TA. That way, we would have learnt all about guns and the like, so when we actually joined up for our National Service, we would be able to strip and assemble a Bren Gun just like Bob Monkhouse did in that Carry On film.

And so it came to pass, that me, Denis Jarman (who sadly died today, 26 April 2005), Roger Cheetham (who died years ago), Gerald Milton who is still alive and lives in Wellington minus a lung, and Tom Leach who ended up as a Policeman somewhere and who also died years ago, rolled up at the local TA centre and offered our services. I mention their names, although they never became either Regulars or National Servicemen, but because the very mention of their names brings back tears of complete stupidity and laughter from all those years ago.

Our sojourn at the TA Centre in Bishop’s Hull, clad in what can only be described as the Country Lad variety of Teddy Boy gear and surplus hair, lasted nearly 5 minutes. They said they didn’t have vacancies, and that we should go to Norton Fitzwarren instead.

That was how I got entangled with Headquarters REME 43 (Wessex) Infantry Division Light Aid Detachment (Territorial Army). The five of us drove out to Norton Fitzwarren, expecting to be part of the massive Supplies Reserve Depot (which was actually run by the RASC, but we didn’t know what that meant), only to be redirected to a pair of large Nissen Huts (note the spelling chaps; they are huts not cars!) just down the road. HQ REME (TA).

You have to bear in mind that all this was happening just twelve years after the end of the War, so things were still very military, and soldiers weren’t allowed to walk in the gutter; the people wouldn’t allow it. They would move to let us pass, and when we protested, they told us that if we were good enough to fight for them, we were good enough to walk on the pavement. Quite humbling really, to a 17 year old who had never fired tea and a wad in anger.

1957 L/Cpl Vile centre row/extreme left - Still smiling

Staff at the HQ REME were exceptional people. We didn’t seem to have a CO. There may have been one, but he never appeared to the best of my memory. We did however have an Adjutant. He was one Captain “Tubby” Redstone. A super chap. I used to go to Church Organ recitals with him and his wife. A man of immense musical knowledge.

There was also a Training Major called Stark. I never actually saw him doing any Training as such, but he spent at least two days a month in the Nissen Huts. In the room right next to the Bar. There was also a permanent Staff Instructor, Staff Sergeant Brian Manders, and a chap who spent most of his time cleaning up. He was called Jack I think. Never wore underpants. Well, that’s what Tubby Redstone said anyway. I often wondered how he knew. He didn’t seem like that. Then there were the TA personnel.

Sgt Taffy Frampton. Cpl Jim Paul. Cpl Gilbert Northam, John “Jake” Jacobs, plus others too numerous to mention. What a time! I have already said that we didn’t seem to have a CO, and why I still believe that will become clear.

At about that time, Stirling Moss the racing driver was adding his name to what would these days be called a Franchise. The “Stirling Moss Paint-a-Car” system. This involved spraying cars for about £30 each, while you waited! There was one of these in Taunton, and Taffy Frampton had seen it. And thought he could do better.

Outside of HQ REME 43 (Wessex) Infantry Division Light Aid Detachment (TA) was a huge name board (had to be large with a name like that!). Taffy Frampton and Brian Manders made a sign which hung over the Official one during opening hours. It said “Cars Painted while you Wait. £20”.

The duo painted cars in anything they had, with the spray guns being connected to the air reservoirs on a 3 ton truck. They used emulsion paint, gloss paint, green army paint, blackboard paint, whatever they could get their hands on. They must have made some money because it went on for months. I never saw anyone complain that their car had been emulsioned in cream.

They also went to auction sales. After the war, as now really, the MoD (then the War Office – much more sensible name!) sold off its surplus stocks, and then as now, only certain companies were allowed to “buy” stuff from the army, and then the man in the street had to buy from those companies. I suppose that the “companies” who were allowed to buy from the MoD were friends of friends of MPs or members of the Government. No change there then.

Taffy and Manders went to Bicester and bought a 3 ton lorry. Pouring with rain. Clad in anti-gas capes (remember them?). Lorry tilt roped down with hemp ropes. Couldn’t be undone. Saturated. So they drove the lorry home to Norton Fitzwarren, and put it in the Nissen Hut.

Next day they returned and cut off the ropes, only to find six wooden crates inside. They opened the first crate. A brand new Matchless Motorcycle! The other crates were the same. Six brand new motorcycles!

Brain Manders phoned the Auctioneers. “Look, about this lorry we bought yesterday … …”. The Auctioneers were not interested. “Sorry”, they replied, “you know our rules; you buy everything on face value, and now its yours”. I often wonder how much they got for the bikes.

As we were a Light Aid Detachment, we had a 6 x 6 Scammell Recovery Vehicle. The first one we had was petrol driven. It did 3 miles to the gallon. Each morning, we had to start it up and let it tick over for half an hour, to warm it up in case we were called out to a Recovery Job. It’s still around somewhere. It occasionally appears in films on the TV.

Cpl. Paul and John Jacobs with big green petrol saving machine

Well, I mean, it worked well. We looked after it. It didn’t really need starting (a bit of a job with a starting handle and four blokes on ropes to swing it over), so we devised an alternative scheme. This involved us sucking out the petrol it would have used had we started it up each day. I never bought any petrol for 18 months.

We never got called out for a Recovery Job. We used it to collect the fish and chips from Taunton, where we parked it on the pavement outside the chippy – much to the annoyance of the Council. In those days of course, we just sent the Royal Engineers down to replace the damaged paving slaps a couple of times a year. Easy then.

Resting before recovery a Class 6 at Penhale Beach

The local Pony Club held its Gymkhana just up the road from our Nissen Huts. On a field with a slope in it. When it rained, the cars couldn’t get out of the field. Oh dear. It meant that we had to book in a Training Day and tow the vehicles out of the field with the Scammell. For £2 a time.

I was always rather good at Clerical Work. That’s always a bonus in the Army. So after I had trained as a Vehicle Mechanic Class 3, Driver/Operator, Vehicle Mechanic Class 2, Recovery Mechanic and Work Study Engineer (yes, really!), Tubby Redstone asked if I would like to be his Clerk GD (REME). Wonderful! He promoted me to Lance Corporal, and I spent the rest of my TA days sitting in the HQ Office running the paperwork.

Time passed, and very soon it got near to my being called up for National Service – at which point I was going to sign on as a Regular. That time never came. Because of either my name or my date of birth, I was never called up. So after a discussion with Tubby, I became a Regular REME soldier. I was asked where I wanted to be posted, so put down Hong Kong, Singapore or British Honduras , in that order.

I got posted to a small REME LAD in 43 (Wessex) Division, at Norton Fitzwarren!
Tubby was over the moon about this, and said that because I lived nearby, I could have a company car. This turned out to be an Austin Champ. Seventy miles an hour in both directions. What a life. I used to refuel with my own Work Ticket at Army Camps and use it as a private car! Very flash!

Tubby had a caravan. He also had an old Rolls Royce car. As part of our training, we had to go to Penhale Camp (still there) in Cornwall, tip a Class 6 (worn out) Tank over the cliff, wait two tides, then recover it with our Scammell. By pure co-incidence, Perran Sands, just up the road, was where Tubby’s caravan spent the Summer! Happy Days!

Tubby’s Rolls Royce; black, sleek, lovely. It would tow the caravan at 40 miles an hour down the unmade-up track to the Caravan Park at Perran Sands and absorb all the bumps! As Clerk of course, I rode in that, rather than in one of the 3 tonners!

There was a Nightclub we went to in Camborne. Called the Flamingo. It was during a visit there with several of my REME Comrades (who shall remain nameless because they are still married) first saw “Rock and Roll” Dancing. With girls in those wide bottomed dresses. And nothing on underneath! Definitely heart attack stuff if it happened to me now! I seem to remember that we spent hours there just drinking and watching.

Time came when I was due to be posted from Norton Fitzwarren. They said Germany, but I didn’t fancy that, so after a series of mishaps involving me trying to re-enlist again at the Recruiting Office, getting a Colour Sergeant out of trouble after REME HQ accused him of persuading me to transfer (he didn’t; it was my idea), I joined the SCLI. Or rather, I didn’t.

I was told I was going to join the Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry. But it didn’t actually exist then. It was still two Regiments – The Somerset Light Infantry, and the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry.

I was given one week’s leave (why? I was already a regular soldier), and a railway warrant to Bodmin.

I remember crossing the viaduct at St Germans. In the fog. Railway carriage with no corridor. All alone, and young. And thinking: “Vile, what the **** have you done now?”

On arrival at Bodmin General, I was met with a whole mob of about sixty National Servicemen, by a Corporal from the DCLI. He marched us all up the hill to Victoria Barracks, me, a REME Lance Corporal with my kitbag, and the others, civilians with a variety of suitcases, at a speed that beggared belief, and we disappeared through the gates, where I, and they, were to start a new, but just as daft, life.

Peter Vile

Copyright to Peter Vile.

(Peter will continue with this story soon)