In July I’m staging a small exhibition of some of the record sleeves I designed in a former life. I was invited to do this as part of a larger Arts Council travelling exhibition that features the work of Peter Blake, including his sleeve for The Beatles Sergeant Pepper album. The organisers thought it would be an idea to fill the available space with more sleeve art, hence my involvement. I’ve also been persuaded to give an hours illustrated talk on my experiences, with (hopefully) entertaining anecdotes thrown in.

Preparations for all this necessitate a foray into the loft, where, if memory doesn’t fail me, there lies buried some original illustrations that were used on various covers. I’m a little apprehensive about this, as I haven’t ventured beyond the trap door at the top of the stairs for years. Not since I insulated the loft. I’ve no good reason to think that all will not be well up there, trusting that what the eye hasn’t seen, the wallet won’t grieve over.

The last person to climb the stepladder was Gary, the plumber, to replace the ball cock in the cold water tank. And as an old neighbour, his prices are always…well, neighbourly. But hopefully there are no nasty expensive surprises lurking in the gloom, just the items I’m looking for. No doubt there’ll be other stuff too. Things that, until retrieved from various bags, folios and boxes, I’d completely forgotten about. Exactly what I can’t say, as I’ve completely forgotten about them. I’m not even sure that the few things I remember being there, actually are. But if not, where the devil are they?

While I’m making the effort it will be a good chance to transfer half-forgotten items from the garage to the totally forgotten world of the loft, as part of a long–term plan to clear the garage space to enable it to be put to the use for which it was originally intended: somewhere to park the car. With petrol prices rocketing, the old jam jar could do with a dry, secure place to spend ever-increasing periods of inactivity, only coming out for essential, ‘no alternative’ trips. I’ve made a start on the garage clearance, but unlike the car, there’s still an awfully long way to go, so the opportunity to shift anything that will squeeze through the loft hatch should not be missed.

Some anti-clutter guru once said that anything that hasn’t been used for a year can be chucked, as it’s obviously no longer vital to keep it. Probably true, but clinically logical and sadly lacking soul. If we all lived (and died) by that code we’d be depriving future generations of the joy of inheriting our useless junk once we’d cast off this mortal coil. I wouldn’t mind betting there’s even a couple of those to be found, still boxed, somewhere amongst the rafters: ‘John Bull Mortal Coil. Empire Made. Please read instructions carefully before use’. Might even be worth a few bob to a mortal coil collector, you never know. What killjoy would deny their beneficiaries the thrill of such an unexpected windfall?

So, maybe the loft experience won’t be so bad after all. It could be fun, sorting through the junk and adding to it, although that pretty much depends on whether I find what I’m looking for. Otherwise it could just end up as a bent-double, dusty experience with a U2 song as the soundtrack.

You can take the boy away from the barrow, but you can’t take the barrow away from boy. And boy oh boy, the man lets everyone know it, with every wretched word he utters from his loud, boorish, Eastenders norf an’ saarf. Give us all a (TV) break Sir Alan, push off and take your two miserable old retainers with you.

I’ve just filled up the car. Over £50. The pressure is on for the Government to do something about the spiralling cost of fuel. The hard fact is that the world’s supply of oil is now in decline, we’ve already burnt more than there is left to be discovered and with the demand from emerging economies such as India and China increasing, remaining stocks will be depleted even more rapidly. As with food, where demand is also outstripping production, we’re likely to see oil producers exporting less, looking to their own needs first and able to demand premium prices from importers. Who, even a year ago, would have predicted that what was considered a basic global commodity – rice – would suddenly be in such short supply, disappearing, almost overnight, from our supermarket shelves?

We can all wince as the numbers on the petrol pump roll around to record highs, but I fear that tinkering with fuel duty and production is ultimately putting off the inevitable truth: the days of plenty are over and we’re going to have to learn to pay the price and live with it – and before too long, in the case of oil, without it.

The Eurovision Song Contest? The title contains the clue. It includes the word ‘Euro’. Culturally, especially in terms of popular music, the UK is a lot further removed from the continent of which we are a part than twenty-one miles. The influences and the roots of what we call ‘pop’ are to be found three thousand miles away across the Atlantic. When Britain found its own pop voice in the early 60’s, we began by repackaging the American originals and selling them back to them. Then bands began to write original songs and for a while, UK musicians led the world. We had the Beatles, France had Johnny Hallyday. Ten years later, we had The Sex Pistols, Belgium had Plastic Bertrand. And so it goes on. There may well have been a Russian equivalent of ‘The Smiths’ or an Italian ‘Cure’, but I somehow doubt it.

So, we were at the bottom of the pile again in Saturday’s contest. Congratulations. And jubilations. The time we win it will be the day the music died. But before I allow my elitist rose-tinted vision of musical superiority to totally obscure the view of stark reality let’s not forget that we have won Eurovision five times, damn it:

Sandie Shaw (1967) – Puppet On A String
Lulu (1969) – Boom-Bang-A-Bang
Brotherhood Of Man (1976) – Save Your Kisses For Me
Bucks Fizz (1981) – Making Your Mind Up
Katrina And The Waves (1997) – Love Shines a Light

But I can, at least, console myself with the following:

The Beatles (1967) – A Day In The Life
The Rolling Stones (1969) – Gimme Shelter
The Sex Pistols (1976) – Anarchy In The UK
The Specials (1981) – Ghost Town
The Verve (1997) – The Drugs Don’t Work

Looking out of my window the rain sweeps in waves, battering at the glass as the roaring wind rips through the trees, scattering leaves onto the sodden ground. Yes, it’s Bank Holiday Monday.

News that Nasa has succeeded in landing an unmanned spacecraft on Mars. The Phoenix Lander touched down in the far north of the planet after a 423-million-mile journey from Earth. It seems that one of the principal objectives of the mission is to collect samples using a specially designed robotic arm with the aim of analyzing them for signs of water and carbon, both necessary to support life – as we know it.

A scientist interviewed on the BBC this morning, said that there is already thought to be evidence, collected back in the 70’s, that both elements exist on the planet, but the findings were not made by accredited Nasa personnel and so were not officially announced at the time. She went on to say that there is a strong possibility of a manned landing ‘in our lifetime’.

In the past, newly discovered and remote outposts of empire were used as convenient dumping grounds for convicted criminals. Is Mars destined to become the 21st century equivalent of Botany Bay, Virginia or Siberia? At least David Bowie may finally get an answer to his question:

Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy.
Oh man!
Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show.
Is there life on Mars?

A soldier’s personal account of World War 2 from 12th December 1939 – 2nd March 1946

Part Sixteen – Sea legs

Troop deck

For over a week we sailed in a great wide arc and all but the worst sufferers from seasickness had found their sea legs. When the great rocky sentinel that is Gibraltar rose out of the horizon and we anchored safely and without incident in the famous and historical harbour.

We remained in Gibraltar Harbour for about a week, but I for one, did not find it boring. There was much activity and plenty to see. I was much taken by the view across the harbour of Algiceras, a small, typically Spanish town of small white houses and bright red roofs nestling beneath a background of reddish brown hills. I would have enjoyed the opportunity of exploring it further. Across the Straits, the mysterious, misty peaks of the Atlas Mountains, silent guardians at the gates of the ‘Dark Continent’. Africa! Since childhood a magic word to me with its stories of dense, impenetrable jungles, native tribesmen and savage beasts. And in the anchorage itself the arrival and departure of all shapes and sizes of ships.

There was believed to exist the danger of enemy action by frogmen operating from ‘neutral’ Spain and to combat this each ship was constantly patrolled by squads of men armed with Sten guns, offering a wonderful chance of which full advantage was taken, of pot-shots at anything that floated by, even down to match-stalks. The water itself was patrolled by motor launches and torpedo boats of the Royal Navy who succeeded in making sleep at night a difficult achievement by dropping small depth charges at short intervals all around the ship.

One day it was decided to give us the opportunity of stretching our legs and over a period of two days we were taken ashore in parties of several hundred at a time for a two or three hour expedition into Gibraltar town. The predominantly Spanish appearance of the streets and buildings were largely offset by the uniforms of the police, which was a reminder of the British ownership of the Rock, resembling as it did and rather incongruously, the so familiar dress of the good old English bobby.

When we slid out of Gibraltar Harbour once more the company had somewhat diminished, the majority of the ships that had sailed in convoy with us from the UK having passed through the Straits and into the Mediterranean bound for Egypt and India.

Almost as soon as we left Gibraltar we became more and more conscious of the ever increasing heat as we sailed south and on into tropical waters. Sleeping below decks as we were, so tightly packed that our hammocks touched each other and with all portholes tightly clamped down as an extra safety precaution should the ship be attacked, the heat was stifling. Sleep became almost impossible as the perspiration literally streamed from every pore, sapping every ounce of energy, soaking every stitch of clothing. Only at night, on deck, on security guard duty, did the movement of the ship create a cooler current of air that gave some relief and refreshment from the scorching heat.

I remember one night when I was standing on duty on the fo’c’sle, just below the bridge, I saw a series of flashes, or rather the reflections of flashes down below the horizon out to starboard. I watched them for several minutes, the conviction growing that it was the glow of distant gunfire – perhaps another convoy, or an outlying corvette of our own escort being attacked by an enemy surface raider or U-boat.

I strained my ears for the sound of distant gunfire but heard nothing but the steady swishing of the waves under the bow. I peered anxiously up at the bridge seeking signs of activity that might confirm my suspicions, feeling almost certain that the lookout man, from a vantage point higher and better than my own, must surely have seen it too. I debated whether I should, without any further delay, give the alarm. The realization came quite suddenly. It was a display of tropical lightning - a phenomenon I was to witness again and again every single night I was in the tropics.

One of the things that fascinated me at night in these tropical waters was the phosphorescent glow in the wake of the ship, like millions of sparkling sequins on a deep blue velvet gown. In the daytime there were porpoises gambling, shiny black, in the surf of the bow wave. And flying fish, flashing blue and green as they soared and skimmed in shoals over the surface of the waves. And here and there the ominous, menacing presence of a shark’s dorsal fin, like the miniature sail of a racing yacht sailing along in the Cowes Roads on the Hamble River back home.

One morning a thin pencil line on the port horizon which, taking shape as the minutes passed, slowly formed itself into a coastline, all dark green and palm trees: Sierra Leone, the Lion Rock, the ‘white man’s grave’.

Arriving in the tropics

We were suddenly surrounded by bumboats, manned by half-naked muscular natives, who dived far down into the clear blue water after coins that were thrown overboard by the troops on the decks above. This was Freetown – so named as the place where freed slaves returned to their native continent, released from bondage by the legislation that ended the slave trade. And here, just outside and on the hills overlooking the port, we were taken to Wilberforce Camp, named after the man who contributed so much to the events that gave Freetown its name. We were transported in trucks driven by African Army Service Corps drivers. We left the quays and jetties and motored out into the main palm-lined streets of tall white government buildings, past the shops and market stalls, over bridges, round bends and up the hill to the camp.

Addressed by the Commandant and the Sergeant Major on the parade ground, we then dispersed to our allocated huts – long bamboo bungalows each containing about twenty bunks. My four colleagues and myself and about ten other newcomers found we were sharing a hut with around four or five ‘old coasters’ who, having completed their tour, were in the camp awaiting a boat to take them home.

The West African colonies were notorious as places most difficult to leave. Out of the few homeward bound ships that called, many were already carrying a full load of freight and passengers so that many fellows waited many weeks, sometimes months, to get home. Each day some of them could be seen sitting on the highest point above the camp gazing out to sea, watching for the ships that never seemed to arrive. ‘Heartbreak Hill’ they called it.

To be continued

There’s no success like failure, and failure’s no success at all. So said Bob Dylan. Avram Grant might well mark his words. Bob also said, money doesn’t talk, it swears. Too bloody right and never louder than in the world of sport.

The two lads were there this morning (see ‘Wonderwall’), in place, leaning on the wall, mugs in hand, t-shirted and squinting through cigarette smoke in the early morning sunshine. But they didn’t look sunny. Grim faced and tense, they appeared restless and aggrieved. Like two mates that had seen their team go out of the Champions League Final on penalties.

‘I’m gutted mate. Gutted. Can’t face the van today. Or tomorrow mate. I’m so gutted - I’m takin’ the rest of the month off mate - the whole bleedin' summer. Another brew mate? And a couple of aspirin? Gutted!

I was reading yesterday that Neil Diamond has reached No 1 in both the US and UK Charts with an album of songs titled ‘Home Before Dark’. At 67, he’s the oldest recording artist to reach the top spot with a collection of new original material, usurping the previous holder, Bob Dylan, with the 2006 release ‘Modern Times’.

Much credit for this late flush of success in Diamond’s long career has gone to Rick Rubin, the man responsible for producing Johnny Cash’s ‘American Recordings’, which ensured a credible and dignified end to the man in black’s recorded repertoire, the last in the series finished just weeks before he died. The Rubin magic seems to have given Diamond the credibility (if only on the arts pages of the mainstream press) that has so far alluded him, with suggestions that he is finally ‘hip’, his appeal to date being to the middle-class, middle-aged taste of suburbia.

His somewhat uneasy relationship with rock, as opposed to pop music, was highlighted in his surprise inclusion as a guest performer at The Band’s 1976 farewell concert, famously filmed by Martin Scorsese and also released as a double album, both titled ‘The Last Waltz’. Other artists appearing included Muddy Waters, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Dr John, Emmylou Harris and Bob Dylan. At Diamond’s introduction, you can almost hear the disbelief in the muted reaction from the capacity crowd. Sensing this, Diamond quipped in a defiant tone that he was ‘only gonna do one song, but was gonna do it good’, the first half of the comment possibly an indication that he thought he deserved more. He then performed ‘Dry Your Eyes’ and retired, again to polite rather than ecstatic applause.

Legend has it that seeing Dylan in the wings, Diamond challenged him with ‘Follow that!’ Lightening fast, Bob asked ‘What do I have to do? Fall asleep?’ Thirty-two years later, with a prod from Rick Rubin, maybe Neil Diamond has finally been stirred from his slumbers.

In my wanderings as a journeyman designer in the music industry I had the good fortune to work with some people possessed of a blessed and precious talent. Sadly, in some instances, their offerings slipped past, unnoticed by most, like precious cargo hidden below aboard a blacked-out ship in the night, the crowd ashore facing inland, drawn to brighter, flashier entertainments that demanded far less of them. In the meantime, the undiscovered ones sailed on, known only to those in the know who cherished them all the more for their obscurity.

One such soul on the fringe of beyond from that time was Peter Blegvad, a tall, laconic, funny and maddeningly gifted American. Peter’s visits to the studio, when he came in to discuss the designs for a forthcoming release, are amongst the most memorable encounters from those days. Not only did he write and perform songs that transcended the efforts of all but the glittering few, he was a truly gifted illustrator and teller of strange tales, always offering uniquely individual and sometimes uneasy observations of the world as he saw it, no more apparent than in his comic strip ‘Leviathan’, that ran in the Independent on Sunday newspaper from 1992 to 1999.

As far as I know, Peter is still around and performing. I discovered a clip on You Tube of a concert performance posted in December last year, though I know not when it was recorded. My own favourites from Peter’s songs? ‘Meantime’ and ‘Real Slap In the Face’ from the album ‘King Strut’. For any of you that do know Peter and his works, you too are blessed, along with all that sail with him.

This afternoon, Cardiff play Portsmouth in the FA Cup Final. Although I’ve nothing against Cardiff, should it shower and prevent me from weeding the garden, there is an ideal opportunity to catch ‘Seems Like Old Times’, a screwball comedy starring Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase (3.30 Channel 5). ‘A married woman takes in her ex-husband after he turns up on her doorstep seeking shelter from the cops’. If the alternative is watching Pompey, sounds like a belter.

A soldier’s personal account of World War 2 from 12th December 1939 – 2nd March 1946

Part Fifteen – Embarkation

A week after our wedding and while I was still on leave, I received orders by registered letter that I had been put on an overseas draft and would be proceeding to the RAMC Depot at Leeds.

I reported back to the 53rd – who had temporarily moved to Castle Headingham in Essex – and stayed one night with them to collect all my kit and documents and the following day set off by train for Leeds. Upon arrival at the depot I learned that the draft on which I had been placed – code reference RCYYK – was an exceptionally small one consisting of only five Hygiene corporals. Besides myself these were John Humphries, Sidney Bostel, Len Bason, and Ron Stuttle, from, respectively, Liverpool, Brighton, London and Warwick and in civilian life they were a salesman with Lever Brothers, a partner in the firm of Bostel Brothers, a Brighton firm of builder’s merchants and sanitary engineers, a radio mechanic and a sanitary inspector.

Kit inspection

The two weeks we spent at Leeds consisted mainly of accumulating new kit and clothing, kit inspections, medical examinations, inoculations and check parades. On one occasion we had a rail trip to York for a yellow fever inoculation at the Military Hospital there. There was much speculation there as to our ultimate destination. It was pretty obviously a tropical climate – the yellow fever inoculation and the tropical khaki drill shirts, shorts and puttees etc, indicated that and when we were issued with wide-brimmed ‘bush hats’ we were told by those ‘in the know’ that we were West Africa bound. They proved correct. Since my four colleagues figure prominently in my story for the next two years, a few words about them would not be amiss at this point. Their names, their places of origin and their civilian occupations I have already mentioned.

John Humphries became my best friend out of the four. He was smallish in stature, intelligent and shrewd by nature (in his early thirties, after the war, he spent two years in Canada, going there originally to pioneer a new field of business for his firm and remaining to become a director on the board of five other companies).

Bostel was the ‘old man’ of the party – he was thirty. A character if ever there was one. Comfortably off, Oxford accented, with an inventive mind and a genius for improvisation. A dry and ready wit he invariably introduced himself as ‘ Sidney Ronald Bostel – call me Bozzy old man’. A grand fellow and a staunch friend.

Len Bason, the cockney. Rather insular in manner but in his more communicative moods possessed of all the typical Londoner’s humour and cocksureness.

And Stuttle – boastful, arrogant, plausible and snobbish. John, Bozzy and I acquired the art of living with him, Len Bason never really did and many a verbal conflict was waged between the two. It says much for the good sense and tolerant restraint that in the many months of wet, sticky heat, of loneliness and boredom with each others company that followed, that nobody, not even Len, ever actually punched Stuttle on the nose.

We sailed from Liverpool early in September in the ‘Highland Princess’. The first stage of our journey took us to the Clyde where we joined up with several other ships to form a convoy and from there out around the North of Ireland and far out into the North Atlantic towards America.

It was a typical British September day when we sailed, a grey mist and the first autumn nip of frost in the air to remind us that this was home and it may be a very long time before we saw it again – some of us never.

To be continued

Back to Heathrow terminal 4 this morning, to pick up. The traffic was lighter than expected, so arrived sooner than planned. Checked the arrivals screen and the flight was on time. Fab. Might get out of the short-stay car park without clocking up a king’s ransom. Then before my very eyes, the arrival time slipped back half an hour. Add at least an hour to taxi, park, disembark, queue for immigration, collect the bags and I was looking at double figures on the debit card. Time then to indulge in a spot of people watching. Always fascinating, imagining the passengers the greeters are there to meet.

The usual lines of bored cab drivers and yawning chauffeurs stood with their boards and scraps of paper bearing names from around the globe, some so unlikely and exotic as to be straight from the pages of fiction. Was that ‘Pussy Galore’ he was holding to his chest and did that really read ‘Kolly Kibber’? Two young men hung around at the back of the expectant crowd, doing their best to play down the bunches of wrapped flowers they had bought as a token of ‘amore’ for their loved one’s. A Rastafarian chatted amiably to a middle-aged lady from the Shires, swapping stories of the waiting game. Children with the jitters in their legs perched restlessly, wanting to know from granny how much longer mummy and daddy could possibly take in the baggage hall (though not in so many words): a thought shared by us all. Some stood, hands or elbows on the barrier, their eyes unable to stray from the automatic doors, afraid that if they glanced away their people would slip through unnoticed, lost and adrift in the alien crowd. Others paced, seeking a distraction, back after a while blowing on a cappuccino grande, peering through the steam for those yet to appear. There were others that sat and read while some merely sat and stared, numbed in the torpor of the silent creep of the numerals on the digital clock.

All the while, from the door marked ‘Arrivals’, the passengers appeared at random, in haphazard groups: in one’s, two’s or more they came, as if tipped, just out of sight, from a giant endless conveyor, their weary eyes scanning the anxious throng before them for a familiar face, a raised hand, their name held aloft, while those with no one to meet them raced on by, focussed ahead, making their own way onward. There were tears; some hugs, many kisses (cheeks, lips, head, French), nods, grins, sighs and plain relief. All were possessed with the unseen, yet tangible presence of having been, while we who had not could only defer and once the greetings were done, offer to carry their bags.

Home again, I was left to reflect on what incident of violent and sudden impact had been the cause of two young women emerging from their flight with bee stung eyes, a seemingly broken nose apiece and fat super-sized lips; one bound by a helmet of carelessly wrapped bandages, framing her face in the style of a medieval maiden who had taken a fall down the castle steps. Plastic surgery or car smash? Take your pick. And is it the hours spent breathing recycled oxygen that convinces young men that the ethnic woven pointy hat they bought from the street market during a Bangkok stopover still looks cool in the arrivals hall back home. Sadly, it doesn’t. They just look like a tit. Or more precisely, like they’re wearing a multi-coloured facsimile of one on their head.

Yesterday I was invited to a private view at the Victoria and Albert Museum: the Story of the Supremes from the Mary Wilson Collection. A display of performance costumes worn by The Supremes, one of the most successful groups of the sixties - only the Beatles had more number one hits.

The Supremes (Mary in the middle). Photo courtesy of Motown Records Archives

With the passing of time and the ever-shifting styles in popular music, it’s easy to forget what a massive influence the Tamla Motwn label and its artists had back then. Can it really be forty years ago that we used to dance the night away to that bass, drum and tambourine driven beat that was the first music of choice for live DJ’s in the student union halls? And of the female groups, the Supremes reigned as their name stated – supreme.

Their influence was such, that to relieve the frustration and tedium of hitch-hiking, my two college mates and I worked out a roadside, Supremes-style routine, thumbs aloft in co-ordinated unison. The lifts were sparser still, but we put it down to the breaking of the golden rule, ‘never hitch in three’s’, rather than our abilities to entertain and thus convince the driving public to pick us up: far too scary. Now, if we’d have been three pretty girls rather than three scruffy Herberts…

The V&A display shows the changing image of The Supremes from the early days, when they were known as The Primettes, to the glamorous Hollywood designs they wore at the height of their fame. Original television footage, photographs and magazine spreads examine The Supremes highly visible success story, one that helped change racial perceptions during the time of the American Civil Rights movement.

My evening was made complete by a brief, but nonetheless real, face-to-face encounter with Mary Wilson as she passed through the crowded hall. She was always my favourite Supreme, still beautiful today. Also spotted in the throng was Led Zep’s Jimmy Page, being treated to a personal guided tour of the exhibits, seemingly unnoticed by the majority in his denims and combat jacket as he chatted enthusiastically to his elegant host. Good to see one living musical legend appreciating another on a hot May night in Kensington.

Today I was woken, with the windows thrown open to catch a breeze, by the metallic stutter of a magpie, perched somewhere just above my head on the guttering. If birds could be sentenced for anti-social behaviour, magpies would be topping the ornithological ASBO list.

They hang around in packs, terrorising the neighbourhood with their noisy, loutish behaviour, strutting about as if they owned the place. Just who the hell do they think they are in their Newcastle United colours?

I once counted over twenty of them perched in a neighbour’s tree, no doubt bent on making trouble, on the lookout for smaller and weaker prey to harass and bully. If I had my way and a shotgun licence I’d set about a cull, fulfilling the prophecy in their name, consigning these troublesome members of the crow family to the insides of a pie; four and twenty pies is a number that springs to mind, that should just about do it.

Now, as I sit in my studio, the delinquent magpie gang appears to have moved on, probably making mischief outside the local ‘One Stop’. I can hear the one note whistle of what I’m reliably informed is the call of a bullfinch, not such a familiar sight in gardens these days, so good to hear – and occasionally see.

I’m currently working on an illustration of Texas troubadour, Sam Baker, who thanks to an on-air appreciation by Radio 2’s Bob Harris, has gained something of a cult following here in the UK. Sam is headlining at a one day festival in Suffolk in August, jointly organised by Ken, an old mate and he’s asked me to assist in the production of a souvenir poster of the event, featuring Sam. May well go along and see the man himself when the time comes, check out the likeness. If it’s a good one, might just ask Mr Baker to sign a copy. Yee–haw. Hang on. Was that a magpie I hear?

A soldier’s personal account of World War 2 from 12th December 1939 – 2nd March 1946

Part Fourteen – Manoeuvres

We became caught up in quite a lot of Divisional activity from now on. In addition to being responsible for the hygiene and sanitation of all the many camps spread over this part of Kent, entailing much motorcycling, inspection and report writing, we took part in quite a number of schemes with their consequent rough living and sleeping under hedges and in ditches etc. On one such occasion, between Dover and Folkestone, we were attacked by marauding German aircraft, this adding an atmosphere of realism to our ‘mock’ battles and incidentally, not a little excitement.

Whilst at Newington I travelled to the Army School of Hygiene at Mychett, near Aldershot, for a course and examination as the result of which I became a Sanitary Assistant Class II and I was for odd periods, usually on schemes, given the rank of local, acting, unpaid corporal.

After we had been at Newington some three or four months we were detailed to move once more, this time to nearby Sittingbourne.

Joe Keith, Mick Rich and I were detailed as the advance party whose job was the interior painting and decorating of the new billet recently vacated by a Bomb Disposal Section of the Royal Engineers. We had a most enjoyable fortnight slapping paint and ceiling white about, returning to Newington each night to sleep.

On the day after we moved to the new billet however, we moved out again on another scheme. This was the biggest manoeuvre ever held in the history of the British Army. Some 32 Divisions, comprising a couple of million men, British and Canadian, took part in what was a realistic full-scale rehearsal for the invasion of Europe and the whole thing lasted some three months. Our division was actually engaged for a month during which time we travelled extensively in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Middlesex and Greater London. The conditions were as near to true combat as it was possible to achieve and indeed, some 2,000 men actually lost their lives and considerable damage to vehicles, equipment and property, government and private, was incurred.

We were absolutely forbidden to enter shops or make any purchases whatever. We had to exist entirely on Army food and official issues of clothing, tobacco and everything else. All mail had to be dispatched and received only through the Army Post Office, billets and bivouacs requisitioned from the civilian population and the whole of England became virtually under military occupation and military law. At the end of our month we had a pretty clear conception of what re-entry into Europe would be like.

Churchill Tank

I was attached for this scheme to the Division Tank Brigade. We were an infantry division consisting of two mechanised infantry brigades and a tank brigade equipped with the new Churchill 50-ton tank. I must have ridden hundreds of miles on my old Matchless in conditions that made a peacetime motorcycle trial as tame as a Sunday afternoon stroll in the park. Most nerve wracking of all was riding in convoy at night without as much light as the glimmer from a match, alongside or between those lumbering great monsters along narrow country lanes, hearing only the rumble and rattle of their caterpillar tracks tearing up the surface of the road, sometimes inches from your own back wheel. But at least now I felt I had earned the right to regard myself as an experienced and accomplished motorcyclist.

After this scheme – Exercise Spartan it was appropriately named – we continued to take part in numerous other exercises varying from Battalion to Brigade, Divisional or Corps strength. Certainly the momentum was increasing towards the final mighty clash that would end the war.

I went to the Army School of Hygiene again and this time returned as a fully qualified Army Sanitary Inspector, First Class, and shortly afterwards received my promotion to full corporal.

I had whilst stationed at Sittingbourne, met, courted and become engaged to Ruth. In July I went on another course. This time a junior NCO’s course at the No1 RAMC Depot at Boyce Barracks (now Queen Elizabeth Barracks), Crookham, Aldershot. It was a tough course, physically and mentally, and lasted a month. I came away from it, thankful to leave such an atmosphere of spit and polish, harsh and rigid discipline and red-tape, but I believe that I was a tougher, more physically fit specimen than at any time of my life and I had justified my attendance at the course by having achieved a distinction in the examination that came at the end of it.

On August 21st, 1943, Ruth and I were married at St Michael’s Church, Sittingbourne.

To be continued

I was on the road early this morning, dropping off at Heathrow’s terminal 4. I like this time of day. The sun illuminated the eastern sky in delicate shades of cold pink and blue, turning to vivid, deeper hues as it rose steadily, finally appearing as a deep orange disc through a purple haze of cloud above the horizon.

Setting off before dawn admits one to an exclusive group, up and away while the majority sleep on, snatching one last dream before the alarm. Trucks line every lay-by in tidy, tight rows, their drivers at rest in the rear of their blacked out cabs. Cars move slower at this hour, headlights on, sticking to the left-hand lane, stretched out in rear view mirror, lone drivers, dark shapes silhouetted against the lightening sky, at ease with the emptiness of the highway, secure in thought that time is on their side: a reward for rising early.

I skirted the airport along the boundary road, the first flight arrivals skimming silently overhead, landing lights flashing from the wingtips. At the terminal I pulled into an empty drop off bay, able to take time, without the rush and sense of mild panic that would exist there an hour hence. By the time I made the motorway again the traffic had doubled, the spell of calm now lost to the new morning. I switched to sidelights. An ambulance, blue light flashing, passed on the opposite carriageway. It was already business as usual.

Two men lean against the pillar of a brick wall outside a house. One holds a mug of tea. Both hold cigarettes. They’re there, talking as they watch the world drive by, most mornings if it’s dry. They’re not old men. Not young. Family men. Fathers most likely. Domestic. Domesticated. Or that’s how it seems, for they never seem to leave the house. Always hanging around. There’s a van. White. With a ladder attached. But that too stays put. What, I wonder do they do? To bring home the bacon. And tea. And cigarettes. A bit of this, a bit of that. Using the white van. Maybe. Ducking and diving. A duck. Then a mug of tea and a fag. A dive. Another mug of tea. Another fag. And in no time, it’s time for their tea. Followed by a fag. But before they put their feet up, a stroll outside, to lean on the wall and contemplate a new day. Tomorrow. Manana. But there’s no rush.

There was a time when each year twitchers from Lands End to all points north on this sceptred isle would write to ‘The Times’ and lay claim to hearing the first cuckoo. Now a thing of the past - or so it seems. For like other species of migrating birds, the cuckoo has stopped coming.

The reasons are uncertain, although if not due directly to… yes, that source of all things ill, global warming, then almost certainly down to human activity of one kind or another. A change in farming practices in its winter habitat south of the Sahara and en route through Europe; shooting – trigger happy, those southern European Johnnies, take a pop at anything that moves, including each other; a reduction in the number of host nests in which to lay their eggs, again, due in part to less hibernating birds arriving here: a vicious circle indeed for the unfortunate cuckoo.

I have rarely heard a cuckoo and certainly never felt sufficiently moved to drop a note to ‘The Thunderer’. As a nipper, being a bit of a twitcher myself back then, I found the egg laying habits of the cuckoo slightly distasteful - heaving some poor helpless Robin’s or Wren’s eggs from the nest and replacing them with its own. Worse still was the thought of the diminutive unsuspecting foster parents raising a monster of a hatched cuckoo with an appetite to match its size. The poor wee things must have been flown ragged by the time their ‘cuckoo in the nest’ had taken flight. So, never my favourite bird, but you have to grudgingly admire its evolutionary ingenuity and lament the passing of its legendary call echoing from a summer wood in the stillness of a golden twilight.

And how, pray tell, did the word ‘cuckoo’ come to stand for silly or slightly mad? Same goes for ‘batty’. Coincidently, another endangered species. Maybe before its final demise, there was a phrase ‘daft as a Dodo’ before it became ‘dead…’ .

My joy and relief at the news of Southampton’s great escape from the drop into the dark tunnel of football’s third division were short-lived, for this morning I read of the imminent return, as chairman, of Rupert Lowe. This could prove to be a far greater catastrophe for the Club than relegation. His previous tenure as chairman was disastrous, with the effects of his loony reign still being felt. Remember; this is the person that bought rugby’s Clive Woodward to St Mary’s as Director of Football. What!? The same person who, after getting through six managers, gave a job to Harry Redknapp, football’s very own Arthur Daley, on the rebound from Portsmouth - of all places - who hung around long enough to make sure Saints dropped into the Championship. Thanks Rupert. No, the man is a clown and I for one am not laughing.

A soldier’s personal account of World War 2 from 12th December 1939 – 2nd March 1946

Part Thirteen – From the 25th to the 53rd

The 25th Field Hygiene Section

One day, when Don Calder was on leave and I was acting as unit desk clerk in his absence, a top-secret letter arrived. On being opened it proved to be mobilisation orders and was headed ‘First Army Headquarters’. So we were to be prepared for another trip overseas. The next few weeks was a time of feverish activity that is necessary in preparing even such a small unit as ours for complete readiness to move to any part of the world at little more than a minutes notice. Among other things it involved a complete mental and dental examination for every man and a complete new series of inoculations and vaccinations and on this occasion we got a brand new one in addition to the usual tetanus, typhoid and smallpox. It was most secret but I was one of the few who shared the secret and it was actually typhus. There seemed little point in it being cloaked by such secrecy since it did not seem to offer very much of a clue as to our ultimate destination.

One of the results of our mobilisation was that three of us were to become attached forthwith one to each of three Royal Engineer units, also now part of the First Army and at this moment, scattered all over Britain. I was one of the chosen three and the unit to which I was to be attached was stationed at Tiverton in Devon. When I left the 25th I was equipped with my entire kit, plus three blankets and a motorcycle (and whilst stationed at Aviemore our original Triumphs had been exchanged for more powerful Mathlesses). We would not see our parent unit again until some time after we reached our destination overseas. The units to which we were to be attached had been allocated the rather diverse duties of road construction and purification of water supplies. Each had been equipped with a brand new hitherto unused mobile water-purification apparatus and it was to be our job to operate this piece of machinery and generally supervise, in an advisory capacity, the maintenance of pure water supplies.

When I arrived at Tiverton – a journey which I undertook with the motorcycle in the guards van of a train – I was given a free hand right away, together with two sappers, to get the new apparatus organised – we none of us having seen such a piece of machinery before. In three weeks we had had it stripped down almost to the last nut and bolt and could work it perfectly, full of confidence at our ability to provide an uninterrupted flow of good clean and pure water when the need arose. It was just at this point in the proceedings that the War Office decided that my place must be taken by someone who had attended a course of instruction on the Mobile Water Purification Plant at the Army School of Hygiene. So I was duly cross- posted to the 53rd Field Hygiene Section, stationed at Hollingbourne, near Maidstone, Kent.

Before I left Devon I met the man from the 53rd who arrived early on the day of my departure and I learned from him that the course he had attended had, in fact, been of only two and a half days duration, so that he had not nearly the practical experience of the thing that I had in my three week’s unrestricted experiment and I actually had to give him some brief instruction on it before I left. However it was he, and not I, who eventually landed in North Africa with the First Army under the supreme command of General Eisenhower.

When I travelled to Kent I took the motorcycle with me. I had no authority to hand it over to anyone else. The Officer Commanding the RE’s didn’t appear very interested in its disposal – it was on his charge and my replacement could not ride one in any case and since I had signed a receipt for it I was not prepared to relinquish it until I, in turn, received an official acknowledgement of its receipt by someone else. When I arrived in Kent it caused quite a stir that I arrived complete with a motorcycle belonging to another unit and I finally succeeded in talking myself into being granted three days in which to deliver it personally back to the 25th still at Aviemore. There was a very happy reunion with all my friends who thought they had seen the last of me, at least for the duration of the war, and there followed a ‘committee-meeting’, of Don Calder, Staff-sergeant Gaffney and Major Ross – and of course myself, on ways and means whereby I could be posted back to the 25th. The negotiations entered into between enthusiastic Major Ross and the much less eager Major Parkinson (my new OC) were never completed because within a few days of my return to Kent the First Army embarked and set sail for North Africa. And so, after almost three years I left my first Army unit, the 25th Field Hygiene Section RAMC. It took me a long time to settle down in the 53rd FHS and never did succeed in really settling down as I had done with my first unit.

The billet at Hollingbourne was a pretty dismal sort of place. An old, dark, barn-like building standing at the top of a long steep hill that led down to the small village about a mile away. I only left it on about two occasions, once to explore the village and once to go dancing in Maidstone – an excursion which, pleasant enough while it lasted, was hardly worth repetition because of the inconvenience of travelling anywhere from such a remote and isolated spot. One bright feature of my posting was that Basil Melton, who had been sent on a similar detachment from the old 25th as I had been was also, for the same reason, cross-posted to the 53rd so that I, at least, had a ‘ready made’ friend.

Fortunately we were only a few weeks at Hollingbourne before the unit moved to Newington , another small village on the main road about mid-way between Gillingham and Sittingbourne on the London to Dover highway. We were not a ‘free-lance’ Hygiene Section as the old 25th had been but a member unit of the 53rd (Welsh) Division. The billet at Newington was a complete contrast to Hollingbourne, a most picturesque and delightful old Tudor manor that had been built some 450 years ago. Its timbered gables, the great entrance hall with the traditional old fireplace, large enough to roast an ox and, no doubt used on numerous accessions during its history for just that purpose, the bare red-bricked chimneys, oak staircases, latticed windows and all the unsymmetricalities of its design and age gave real beauty, character and charm to a house whose use as an Army billet seemed altogether incongruous, even if not downright sacrilegious. But I at least appreciated and loved it and have never relinquished a secret desire one day to own it should I ever make my fortune and be able to indulge such an ambition to become the village squire.

Newington itself offered little in the way of entertainment beyond a couple of quaint and hospitable hostelries, but now only five minutes walk from a main bus route we could take our choice from Sittingbourne, Gillingham, Chatham and Rochester for such pleasures as the cinema, the dance-hall and the music-hall. There was a regular Saturday night dance held in the Cooperative Hall at Rainham, not fifty yards from the Wrens billet which meant that there were adequate dancing partners and which led ultimately to the whole Wren detachment being invited to our Christmas party and we, in turn, being invited en bloc to their New Year party.

To be continued