Monday 31 October 2011

A PERMANENT SENTRY

Standing upright between the Keep and the Police Post in Brecon Barracks is a large shell of a type used by the Royal Navy.  Not many people who enter the barracks these days know how it got there.  The story goes like this.

In 1957 Jimmy Hubbard was the Quartermaster of the depot South Wales Borderers.  Those who remember that irascible character, whose bark was worse than his bite, will understand how infuriated he could become if, for example, a driver ran the wheels of a truck over his favourite flower bed outside the Guardroom.  This used to happen quite often until Jimmy decided on a course of action.
    For many years a shell used by large men-o‘-war had been lying by the side of the road at Felin Newydd between Brecon and Llyswen.  Nobody could remember how it got there and Brecknock Council were content to leave it alone as it was so heavy.  Jimmy Hubbard had an idea though – it would be ideal for protecting his flowers.
    A dozen National Servicemen were despatched in a 3-ton truck to Felin Newydd and, after much sweating and heaving,  the shell was lifted on to the truck and taken back to barracks.  On arrival it was set upright on its base and proved to be the perfect deterrent for drivers who cut corners.

In 1984 I met someone who was knowledgeable about the old Naval Dockyard in Milford Haven.  I showed him the shell and asked him if he could throw any light on its history.  He rang me a few days later and said that it most probably fell off a truck as it was coming back from Milford Haven after being de-activated.  “On the other hand,”  he said, “it could have been going to Milford Haven to be rendered harmless, and if that is the case, it could still be live.”

Major (later Lieut Col) Peter Kerruish was the officer responsible for action concerning unexploded bombs in the vicinity of Brecon Barracks and he gave me a sick look  when I told him that there was a fifty-fifty chance that a monster UXB was standing outside the Guardroom.
    A team from Hereford arrived the following day and carried out tests.  Fortunately for those who worked in the Barracks and others who lived in the Watton, it was given a clean bill of health,

Jimmy Hubbard died on the 13th June 1981 but his shell is still doing duty outside the Guardroom.

Thursday 20 October 2011

A VOLUNTEER IS WORTH TWO PRESSED MEN SNAPSHOTS OF MY SERVICE WITH 5/WELCH AUGUST 1961 – DECEMBER 1963

I slipped a disc in February 1959 and spent six months in military hospitals before being discharged with a P7 medical grading.  I had long since abandoned plans to join the Sultan of Muscat’s Army and was posted instead to the Welsh Brigade Depot in Crickhowell, South Wales. 
    Things could have been worse.  Despite the inconvenience of having to wear a corset akin to some sort of medieval torture apparatus, I was soon able to lead a near normal life and even get married in August 1960.
    During the spring of 1961, Lieut Col ‘Dixie’ Deane (SWB), the CO, called me into his office and told me I was being posted to the 5th Battalion Welch Regt (TA) as Adjutant. I had never considered the possibility of working with the Territorial Army even though my Regiment had three TA battalions and most of my contemporaries had served, or were serving, as adjutants.  I knew very little about the ‘volunteer’ side of the Regiment other than what I read during some last minute punching-up on the war history of 5/WELCH.  I learnt about its role in the capture of Jerusalem in 1917 and the important part the battalion played in the North West Europe Campaign in 1944-45.  Socially, they seemed a good lot and I enjoyed myself greatly at 4/WELCH  Officers’ Ball in Murray Street Drill Hall, Llanelli in 1955.
    I was introduced to 5/WELCH when I visited them at camp in Barry Buddon on the  south east coast of Scotland during the summer of 1961. I was given a double 160 pounder tent which, when put end to end, formed a wind tunnel.  In a hot climate in mid-summer it would have been ideal, but the Scottish weather was at its worst and  the previous occupant, Major General Charles Hirsch, the Honorary Colonel, told me he had never been so cold in all his life.   During the few days  I spent in Scotland, the only sign of life I saw beyond the limits of the camp was a couple of civilians bravely battling their way through gale force winds along the sea shore.  Despite the atrocious weather, most of the TA officers had brought golf clubs in order to make use of the splendid golfing facilities in that part of Scotland.
    The commandant of the camp and training area, in a retired capacity, was a fellow called Colonel Andrew Braisby.  I first met him in 1958 when he was the British Military Attache to the Lebanon.  He came up to the skii school at Les Cedres while I was there and entertained everyone in the officers’ mess with his collection of  amazing stories.  He claimed to be the last British casualty of World War Two  or, more accurately, the first post-war casualty in 1945.  It happened during the morning on 9th May 1945 when the ‘cease fire’ was only a few hours old.  He was proceeding to his company base in North Germany when his vehicle broke down.  Following him was a dispatch rider on a motor bike who stopped to give him a lift.  Andrew climbed aboard the pillion but the engine stalled and the driver had to kick-start it.  In so doing, he caught his sleeve on the cocking handle of his Sten sub-machine gun which went off, shooting Andrew through the jaw.    
    He was quite proud of the various scars and deformities caused by unfriendly fire and the last one he received put a lop-sided expression on his face that went well with his monocle and flashy clothes.  

There was a medical reception station at the  camp that had a notice above the door which read:-
                                   
MRS BUDDON.

 One of our TA soldiers reported sick with a boil on his backside but returned to the company office a few minutes later and asked if an appointment could be made for him to see a male doctor.  When asked to explain, he told the Company Sergeant Major that Mrs Buddon might be a very good doctor but he was not prepared to take his trousers down in front of her.

A few weeks after returning from Scotland, I was officially posted to 5/WELCH as Adjutant.  Due to the  imminent birth of our son in August 1961, I travelled daily by car from our married quarter in Brecon to HQ 5/WELCH in Pontypridd.  It was a pleasant run over the Beacons and down through Merthyr Tydfil  but one day I was disturbed by what I thought was a fish bone stuck in my throat.  When I returned that evening, my wife, Nesta, gave me some bread and butter hoping to dislodge it – but it was still there the next morning. 
    Our next-door neighbour to-be (when we moved to Pontypridd) was a doctor, so I went along to see him.  He put a long-handled mirror down my throat but there was no sign of a fish bone..  He advised me to go to the hospital in Church Village for an X-Ray. This I did but the photograph revealed nothing abnormal.  Not content with giving me a clean bill of health, the specialist asked me questions about my life-style.  When I told him that my wife was expecting a baby, he said: “That’s it!” and told me that the ‘fish bone’ was a sub-conscious expression of sympathy with my wife.  I spent another two or three days expecting to see the sharp end of a fish bone appear through my neck but then when my wife gave birth - the ‘fish-bone’ disappeared. 
    When I related my experience at a Sergeants’ Mess social a few weeks later, Sergeant ‘Knocker’ John, the Provost Sergeant, told me that every time his wife was about to increase his already large family, his big toes swelled so much he could hardly get his boots on.
   
When I became Adjutant, I missed the convivial atmosphere of the Officers’ Mess.  The only time I saw TA officers was on drill nights, twice a week, and once a month at week ends.  I had been commissioned for 15 years and had been used to going to the  mess at lunch time, having a drink with my friends, sitting down for luncheon and being served by properly dressed waiters.  I soon realised that I would have to change my habits but I saw no reason to follow the example of my predecessor who took sandwiches to work and ate them in his office.  Nesta, despite being heavily pregnant, prepared excellent lunches for me in plastic containers before I left Brecon.   I gave these to Jimmy James, the caretaker of the drill hall, when I arrived in Pontypridd and sharply, at 12.45pm, I would go upstairs to the  mess where Jimmy would be waiting behind the bar to serve me with a gin and tonic.  Without anyone to talk to (other than Jimmy), I would read The Daily Telegraph for 15 minutes or so and then proceed to the dining room where the contents of the plastic containers had been transferred to silver tureens.  Jimmy would then serve me in the manner to which I was accustomed.

Once every three months, a dinner or a guest night would be held in the Mess when the full panoply of regimental silver and the Colours would be on display.  The TA officers prided themselves on doing things properly and I could find no fault in their procedures. 
    We had our own Band which played through dinner while the Corps of Drums, led by the Goat, marched around the table after port was served. After dinner, Colour Sergeant Percy Cowell and Sergeant ‘Hot Lips’ Lewis would introduce the second part of the Band programme by playing the Post Horn Gallop using the silver post horns presented to 5/WELCH by Pontypridd Town Council.  Even to the present day  (in 2007), I have a feeling of nostalgia when I hear those same post horns produce such pure notes.

Soon after I joined 5/WELCH, our goat died and I set the wheels in motion to get a replacement. Kashmir goats come from the Royal herd which, in Queen Victoria’s day was kept at Windsor.  Legend has it that the Queen visited the 41st Regiment (later the Welch Regiment) at Aldershot in 1856 and was shown  the Russian ‘Billy goat which had accompanied the battalion during the Crimean War. Understanding the respect  with which the animal was held, she directed that future goats should be made official members of the battalion and that successors should come from her own herd.  That has been the custom to the present day and the tradition is carried on by The Royal Welsh.
    Dr Desmond Morris was the curator of mammals at London Zoo, where the Royal herd of Kashmir goats was later kept, and it was he who selected the replacement goat. He also invited the Honorary Colonel, the Commanding Officer and me to have luncheon with him at the Zoo on the day of the presentation. 
    It was an unforgettable experience for many reasons and the ‘hand-over’ was captured on film by the official photographer when ‘Taffy’ was having his scarlet coat adjusted by RSM Jim Holt.  Wearing a coat was bad enough but  having a silver buckle next to his stomach was beyond the call of duty.  He reacted as one would expect from a Kashmir Goat of the Royal Herd.
    The arrival of a new Regimental Mascot in Pontypridd provided much publicity for the Battalion, and ‘Taffy’ was front-page news in all the papers.  Television was still in its infancy and I was asked by ITV if I could bring him to their studios in Pontcanna Fields, Cardiff to be shown on one of their ‘Here Today’ programmes.    
    ‘Taffy’ was given the full beauty treatment, including having his silver head-plate polished by Goat Major Eric James (Jimmy James  the caretaker’s son) before we left Pontypridd.  When we arrived at the studio, the first thing that happened was the dulling-down of the head-plate:  “Too much shine,”  said the make-up woman, “and  has he got another coat? The camera doesn’t like red ones.”  I told her that as 95% of Welsh viewers used black and white TV sets there should not be a problem. 
    Joseph Cotton was the interviewer (plus piano player) and everything was scripted.  We spent an hour or so rehearsing questions and responses until the floor manager told us we would be ‘on air’ in one minute.  Joseph opened the programme by asking me if I thought Taffy was missing his friends in London Zoo.  So far, so good and I was word perfect with the answer, but then he asked me if he was going to ‘get his oats’ every day.  Nothing had been said about ‘oats’ during the rehearsal and it was quite obvious what the interviewer meant by the saucy expression on his face.  I stumbled with a quite unsuitable answer while the floor manager and cameramen sniggered over my embarrassment.  Taffy was the only well behaved creature in the studio. 

Major Melville Clement and I were commissioned on the same day in July 1946 and were seen off by our families and Mel’s wife, Edwina, when we travelled together by train from Cardiff to Brecon to join the 21st Infantry Training Centre in Dering Lines.  We remained firm friends until his untimely death on 6th December 2004.
     When I joined 5/WELCH, Mel commanded ‘A’ Company in Aberdare and I used to see him at least once a week when he called in at Battalion HQ on his way home.  It was not unusual to find most of the company commanders in the Pontypridd officers’ mess on Tuesday nights as most of them lived in the Cardiff area.
    5/WELCH was a compact unit and my job was made much easier by being able to visit all the drill halls in one morning.  Some of my colleagues in 160 (Wales) Brigade used to take a few days off to visit their outlying companies while some non-regular commanding officers only saw the full complement of officers and men at annual camp.
    Mel and I were enjoying a drink with each other one night when we put some ideas together about  organising a boat race down the River Taff.   It was primarily designed to be a public relations exercise to stimulate recruiting, but also an opportunity to get the battalion together and have some fun on a (hopefully) warm and sunny Saturday afternoon in August.
    The plan was to race infantry assault boats, each with a crew of five men, from rifle companies (4), HQ Company (2) plus a team each from the officers’ mess and sergeants’ mess,  making eight teams in all, down the River Taff from Abercynon (about three miles north of Pontypridd) to the two bridges over the river at the north end of the town.  The oldest of the two bridges was the longest stone built single arch bridge in Europe when it was built in 1756.  The one alongside it was erected in 1857 to accommodate horse drawn traffic. I have good cause to remember the latter as my young son stuck his head through the railings one day and was only able to get it out when pats of butter were spread behind his ears.
    I carried out a recce the following day and found an ideal start point on a piece of council land just south of Abercynon where a meadow sloped gently towards the river.  This would allow the boats to be drawn up, bows facing the river for a le Mans start.  Halfway to the bridge there were rapids with boulder strewn rivulets leading to a waterfall known as the Berw Pool.  From there onwards the river ran smoothly towards the two bridges, both of which would hold hundreds of spectators with the ‘modern’ bridge marking the end of the race.
     Few of our soldiers, if any, had experience of using assault boats so the Quartermaster ordered them in sufficient time for some practice runs.    The boats we were issued with were of the collapsible variety which meant raising the canvas sides and securing them with wooden struts.
    On the day of the race, spectators gathered early to get a good view.  The Training Major had set up a display of weapons and equipment on the ‘old’ bridge as this was the most popular place to watch the race.  Other spectators lined the river bank on both sides and the police turned out in force to control traffic.
    At the start line, boats and crew were drawn up ready and waiting for the starting gun to be fired. When the shot rang out  there was a 30 yards dash to the boats and another 30 yards carry to the water, then it was up with the sides, in with the slats and paddle like hell. 
    Those who knew the River Taff well found vantage points near the Berw Pool. The recent heavy rain had increased the water level and the river was running fast.  Some teams managed to steer clear of the waterfall but I remember seeing one of HQ Company’s teams taking a nose dive when they failed to ride the correct approach channel.  Sergeant ‘Syd’ Piper was in the bows and, although he wore a life jacket, there was  concern when he did not come to the surface. The boat soon righted itself, however, and Syd, who had a pronounced stutter, emerged from the depths yelling: “P-p-p-pass me a p-p-p-paddle and p-p-p-pull me in.”
 ‘C’ Company team won but everyone enjoyed themselves and 5/WELCH was a great hit with the public.
    When I left the battalion in December 1963, I presented a silver cup to be competed for annually.   I spent the next two and a half years in the Far East and when I returned to UK in 1966, I was invited to attend the Taff Boat Race and present my cup to the winning team. 
    The event was just as popular as it had been in my day; the old Pont y ty Pridd (Bridge by the Earthen House) was still doing a great job for recruiting, and competitors still vied with each other to find the best route around the Berw Pool.  The ‘march of time’ and rigid implementation of ‘health and safety rules’ put an end to the Taff Boat Race a few years later and my cup, I hope, still languishes in Abertillery Drill Hall (the last place where I saw it).

My first Commanding Officer in 5/WELCH was Lieut Col ‘Rusty’ Davies who managed a bank in Swansea.  He usually attended  drill nights in Pontypridd on Tuesdays and whenever we had a week end exercise, a shooting match, sporting events and suchlike.
    Week end training depended upon the number of ‘man days’ available.  We were allocated a certain number each year – something like ten per man (excluding two weeks at camp when TA members were paid Regular Army rates plus half their annual bounty – the remainder being paid on Remembrance Sunday to ensure  maximum turnout).  We had to keep a careful check on ‘man days’ to make sure we did not run out half way through the year.  Fortunately, not everyone turned up for week end exercises etc. but, instead of saving ‘man days’ for a rainy day, they were often used by the Band and Drums when public relations events were given priority. The TA Secretary kept some up his sleeve but we had to make a good case before he would consider giving us any. 
    Long and short drills were not rationed and were paid for by the TA Association.  On Tuesday nights, training took place in drill halls from 7pm to 9pm while shooting competitions with .22 rifles were conducted in miniature ranges  on Thursday nights.  
    The ‘social’ factor was important. Every drill hall had its own club with beer available at reduced prices and, after an hour or two of military training, thirsts needed to be quenched and stories about the last camp or exercise retold. 
    Wives and girl friends were given much consideration when social events were held.  Not all of them were happy about husbands and boy friends going off on training exercises at week ends and for two weeks  camp during the summer.  The extra money the menfolk earned was a small bonus, but it still rankled.
    Somehow or other we bumbled along – scrimping here and saving there with no loss of esprit de corps.  In fact, the morale of the battalion remained at a high level throughout the time I was with them and our soldiers, when the occasion demanded, could always be relied upon to perform as well as their colleagues in the Regular Army.

When Nesta, my wife and young son, Richard, moved from Brecon to Pontypridd in September 1961, we were given a quarter at The Highlands, a suburb of Pontypridd on the east side of the main Merthyr to Cardiff road.  It was a nice place to live and the views across the valley were delightful.
    During the summer evenings, we used to take our son, in his pram, across an area of common land to the 5/WELCH War Memorial.  Before I left home one night,  I searched but was unable to find my key ring upon which was fastened the key to my car and the key of the security cabinet in my office.  I retraced the route we had taken but found nothing.  Fortunately, I had a spare key for the car and I seldom had cause to look inside the security cabinet; getting the lock changed the following day would not be a problem.  I came to the conclusion that I must have left the keys in the ignition of the car and that someone had stolen them.   
    When I arrived at the drill hall, about 20 minutes late, the normal hubbub of activity was under way.  There was no need for me to say anything about the loss of my keys, but it was one of those occasions when I opened my mouth one time too many. The Colonel stopped dead in his tracks and questioned me about the loss. He was not concerned about my personal loss but a very stern look crossed his face when I admitted the loss of the key of the security cabinet.  Colonel ‘Rusty’ Davies had gone through the Second World War with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, won a Military Cross and was a seasoned and efficient officer in all respects.  Being a bank manager had tempered his zeal as far as matters of security were concerned; I felt like a small boy being admonished by the headmaster.
    I retired to my office and immersed myself in administrative matters while the Colonel went to his office and held ‘Open Door’ for anyone with a problem. Corporal Williams 42 had come down from one of the outstations with a niggle about his results in a recent examination and was telling the CO all about it.  Colonel ‘Rusty’ was beloved by his soldiers and he looked upon his ‘Open Door’ policy as a valuable link between officer and soldier.  The petitioner might not get what he wanted but, at least, he would have had his say.
    While he was dealing with Corporal Williams , the telephone rang in my office.  The person at the other end wanted to speak to a ‘Mr Davies’.  I told him that we had scores of soldiers named ‘Davies’ in the battalion and could he be more explicit.  “He’s an officer – a colonel, I believe,” said the caller.  That put ‘Rusty’ in mid-frame and I told him that Colonel Davies was presently engaged on important business with one of his NCOs.  “Could I take a message?” I asked. The caller said he did not want to disturb either of us, but would I tell Mr Davies, when I had an opportunity, that he had left the keys of the bank vault on his desk and that he (the caller) would return them to him the following morning.  I asked how much money was in the vault:  “About two million pounds, give or take a few thousand,” was the answer.
    I felt a glow of satisfaction as I chose the words I would use to give the Colonel the surprise of his life and waited until Cpl ’42 was on his way back to his company before I made my move.
     “If you don’t mind me asking, Colonel, where do you keep the keys of your bank vault?”  The Colonel blinked for a few seconds while he pondered my question, then replied:  “In my trouser pocket, of course.”  I gave him the same sort of look as he gave me only a few minutes before, and said:  “Are you sure you’ve got them?” 
     Revenge was sweet but I did not prolong his misery and told him about the telephone call I had received.
    I understand that lightning rarely strikes twice in the same place but, quite remarkably, the same sort of thing happened a year later.
     Colonel ‘Rusty’ and I wore similar raincoats and somehow they got mixed up during a week end shooting competition on Newton ranges near Porthcawl.   He became aware of the mix-up before me but was unable to contact me (no mobile phones in those days), because I had driven to Barry to spend the remainder of the week end with my parents.  It was not until I arrived home in Pontypridd at about 9.30am on the Monday morning that I became aware of what had happened.  Waiting outside our house was a car whose driver wanted to know if I had Mr Davies’s keys in my raincoat pocket.  I had not worn the coat since the previous Friday and, sure enough, there they were. 

During the summer of 1962 the three TA battalions of the Welch Regiment camped near Dartmoor.  This afforded me an opportunity to meet an old friend who was employed (in a retired capacity) as Commandant of an Army training area.   Colonel Denis Campbell Miles, who had been my Commanding Officer in the South Wales Borderers in Eritrea in 1950-51 looked after Plasterdown Range and Training Area.   He loved horses and was in his element during the 13 years he spent there. He became a well known figure riding the range and was rarely parted from his sturdy gelding ‘Faras’.
    Dartmoor was an ideal place to practise our drills and take part in manoeuvres;  we enjoyed working closely with our friends from 4/WELCH (Llanelli) and 6/WELCH (Cardiff).  There were dinner nights and guest nights, Beatings of Retreat and an officers’ cocktail party during the middle week end when wives and girl friends came down. 
    The finale, as far as 5/WELCH was concerned, was a battalion dawn attack upon an ‘enemy’ position.  This involved a night approach march of ten miles to an assembly area where the cooks brought up a hot meal.  During the hours of darkness a recce party led by Captain Eddy John laid white tape from the assembly area to the start line.  They also placed, at regular intervals, perforated biscuit tins with lamps inside to keep us on track. 
    As the first shafts of light appeared, the Second-in-Command, Major Bill Gibbs, gave the order to advance.  The message was passed left and right down the line and everything went according to plan until the leading company,  with Bill Gibbs up front, arrived at the start line. Bill glanced at his watch – right on time, and gave the silent signal to move forward. 
    He  was the first man in the battalion to enter ‘enemy’ territory and the first to fall prey to the Brigadier’s  secret weapon – a Dartmoor bog.  He took only a few paces before he was up to his knees and then sank further until only his head and shoulders were above ground level.  The soldiers near him were like a flock of startled sheep and word was passed down the line to wait until dawn before they tried to find a way around the swamp. 
    Meanwhile, the priority was to get the 2 I/C out before he disappeared altogether.  Someone produced a rope and we tried to pull him out, but that was no good.  Then someone suggested a jeep equipped with sand tracks, but that would take too long.  Finally, his batman, with whom Major Bill had great trust, crawled as near to his Lord and Master as was possible saying “Leave him to me – I’ll get him out.”   Pte Jones 02 was a skinny little fellow who made very little impression upon the surface of the bog as he crept forward.  Within a few minutes he was standing on a few pieces of wood that someone had tossed to him, with his arms around his boss doing his best to screw him out.  That might have worked if the whole of the Second-in-Command’s body revolved at the same time, but everything below his shoulders was stuck fast and he was in danger of having his spine twisted like a corkscrew. Jones 02 remained with his boss until a jeep arrived and the rescue was completed.
    The Brigadier, who had written the ‘bog incident’ into the exercise, was delighted that his ruse had worked so well and made a point during his assessment of the exercise about ‘the need for sound reconnaissance’.

I was talking on the phone to Edwina Clement, widow of the late Major Melville Clement, recently and she asked me if I remembered the time when wives and girl friends visited 5/WELCH at camp in 1962.  I knew what she was going to say but I listened anyway as she reiterated the cock-up of gigantic proportions I made when I booked, cancelled and rebooked accommodation in various hotels in Okehampton until no one knew what was happening.  Not only did I get a lot of agro from the WAGS, and husbands/boy friends of WAGS, but also from hotel owners and managers who resented being mucked about during the peak holiday period.  I can’t remember exactly how it ended but I do know that I was the most unpopular officer in 5/WELCH until the end of camp.

Despite any official records to the contrary, the winter of 1962 will stand out as the coldest I have ever experienced.  We moved from The Highlands (near 5/WELCH War Memorial) to The Mount, a much larger house within a few hundred yards of the town centre, soon after the Quartermaster, Major Tony Wedlake, and his family went to Singapore.  The cold weather was yet to arrive and we spent an idyllic summer enjoying our new quarter and the spacious grounds that surrounded it.
    Our first visitor was Major General Charles Hirsch, the Honorary Colonel, who was paying one of his many visits to the battalion during his tenure.  The Highlands was too small to offer him accommodation on previous visits, but the main guest bedroom in The Mount was fit for a General!  I went to meet him at Cardiff General Railway Station and I was able to bring him up to date with battalion activities during the return trip to Pontypridd.  My wife had not met him but knew all there was to know about him.   His wife was the sister of the Lord Lieutenant of Glamorgan, Colonel Sir Cenydd Traherne KG and Lieut Col John Traherne, recently CO 1/WELCH.  His son, Peter Hirsch, also a regular officer of the Welch Regiment, had been second in line to the baronetcy held by his uncle, Sir Cenydd, until Col John Traherne’s wife, Lesley, produced a son, Rhodri, in 1956.   I brought the bags inside while he chatted to Nesta. 
    My wife, invariably calm and collected, looked somewhat uneasy and kept trying to attract my attention.  After I had given the General a stiff gin and tonic in the sitting room she found an opportunity to get me into the kitchen. “There’s a dead hamster in his bedroom,”  she said.  “I’ve tried getting it out of the drawer, but it’s stuck tight.” 
    For a few weeks we had been aware that a hamster was missing from a cage in the butler’s pantry.  Our young son was absorbed with its antics on a wheel and would let it out whenever he had the  opportunity; it always came back so we were not unduly worried. 
    I went upstairs and found one very dead hamster glued, as my wife had said, to the bottom of a drawer.  It had gone past the ‘smelly’ stage and must have been close to mummification as I had to use a kitchen knife to prize it off.  I gave the room a liberal squirt of Lily of the Valley and went downstairs to assure my wife that all was well. 
    Women are funny about such things as dead hamsters.  Even though the General seemed unaware of the drama that had been enacted almost under his nose, Nesta was sure that her reputation as a hostess would never recover.

When the cold weather arrived we waged a losing battle to keep the house warm. There were no such facilities as loft insulation and double glazing and when I tried to locate the hot water boiler one day, I found it, unwrapped, half way up an open chimney.
     During the run-up to Christmas the Post Office, as usual, took over some of our drill halls to store parcels. The permanent staff instructor (PSI) at Merthyr was ‘surplus to requirements’ for ten days so he asked me if he could take some leave.  I agreed to his request and told him to make sure he was back in Merthyr by Christmas Eve when the Post Office people were due to leave.
    Those in temporary occupation of the drill hall were responsible for security and keeping the place warm, but when they left one day earlier than agreed, they turned the heating system off.  The drill hall was, therefore, unheated for 24 hours – and during that time the big freeze struck.
    I received a telephone call from the PSI on Christmas Eve telling me that all the radiators were smashed and that the place looked as if a bomb had dropped on it.  I was fully aware that radiators had to be drained or switched off if left unattended and, if anyone was to blame, it was me. 
    It was not easy to find a plumber on Christmas Eve especially as hundreds of other houses and buildings had been similarly affected.  Brigadier Claude Hurford, the TA Secretary, was livid when he realised how much it was going to cost to repair the damage and the CO wanted to know why I had disobeyed the rules.
     We spent a miserable Christmas in a cold house with a gas stove that packed up half way through cooking the turkey (pipes frozen) and it was well into February of the following year before life returned to normal.

The Cambrian March had been going for a few years before I joined 5/WELCH but the 1962 competition was the first one I witnessed. All major units of 53 (Welsh) Division were expected to produce teams of ten TA soldiers, including one officer who would spend a week marching over some of the roughest terrain in Wales and being subjected to practising military skills such as river crossing, shooting, first aid and map reading  The average distance covered was 20 miles a day for seven days starting on a Friday.  Details of the route would remain secret except for the general location – south, mid or north Wales.  ‘D’ Company at Merthyr took on the task of providing most of 5/WELCH’s team that trained every week end for three months before the event. 
    I arrived in time to see the teams set off on the 1962 race and so did a number of TA COs, Seconds-in-Command and Company Commanders.  One of the teams was short of an officer when the race was due to start and the CO of that unit had to fill the place himself.  It was a noble thing to do as he was not trained sufficiently for the gruelling task that lay ahead. I met the teams in every night and it was obvious that the replacement officer was not going to last the course.  There was a marked absence of senior TA officers the following year as teams set off.
     Training and taking part in the Cambrian March produced fine athletes and 5/WELCH did well in the 53rd (Welsh) Division cross country championships held in Lichfield  in 1962 when they took fourth place.

When regimental bands no longer had a place in the orbat of regular infantry battalions, the two line infantry regiments of Wales, continued to display their unique Welsh flair through the TA Band of the Royal Welsh Regiment.
     On 1st March 2006, the Royal Welch Fusiliers and the Royal Regiment of Wales amalgamated to form a new regiment -  The Royal Welsh. New arrivals in the Regiment hardly notice the difference on occasions such as Rorke’s Drift Commemoration in Brecon Cathedral and Rugby matches in the Millennium Stadium when our own TA Regimental Band, Corps of Drums and Regimental Goat give all the presence and support that Welsh men and women have come to expect.
    The loss of the old style Regimental Band is felt mainly in the ranks of the regular battalions.  For generations the Band was the source of high morale on the march, on military parades, at leisure in barracks and on the sports field.  These days, regular soldiers overseas have to be content with infrequent visits by one of the two regular bands based in Lichfield which support all units of the Prince of Wales’s Division of Infantry.
    Many of our sister battalions in the British Army do not have the same tradition of music that we take for granted in Wales.  When I served with 5/WELCH, our band was continually in the public eye at regimental functions or civic occasions.  There were many civilian brass and silver bands throughout our recruiting area and no shortage of musicians.  In fact it was considered a great honour to be a member of 5/WELCH Band.  During the winter months I attended a number of competitions and 5/WELCH Band was always in the top flight.
    The role of the Territorial Army is to provide home defence for the country and support for the regular army in time of need.  No better examples can be seen than the hands-on support given by TA soldiers to their Regular colleagues on active service and the wonderful contribution of the band of the Royal Welsh Regiment which is as good, if not better, than anything we had in the old days.

A good example of being in the hub of the community was the Sunday evening concerts in Pontypridd Drill Hall. They were held under the patronage of HQ Company but an impresario, Ron Richards, arranged the concerts, booked the acts and ran the show himself.  They were extremely popular among the local population and did wonders for the PRI account.  These concerts were held at about the same time that Tom Jones, the singer, was making a name for himself.  It just goes to show what talent existed in Pontypridd when Tom Jones was not asked to  do a turn!
    Another popular venue was the Warrant Officers’ and Sergeants’ Mess in Pontypridd which was open on Saturday and Sunday evenings for members and guests.

Lieut Col ‘Rusty’ Davies was dined out on 8th September 1962 and the officers of 5/WELCH made it an occasion he would never forget.   During World War Two, ‘Rusty’ served with the 8th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and he often told us stories about certain fabulous characters with whom he had served.  The PMC of the officers’ mess managed to locate four of his old friends, hidden away in the fastnesses of the Scottish highlands, and they were invited to attend ‘Rusty’s’ big night.  Other guests were the Colonel of the Regiment - Lieutenant General Sir Charles Coleman, the Honorary Colonel - Major General Charles Hirsch and the Brigade Commander, Brigadier Carlton Griffin.
    ‘Rusty’ is a modest man and was surprised to be greeted by the Colonel of the Regiment when he arrived.  The presence of the other two senior officers was also a surprise but when his four pals from Scotland greeted him one by one it was almost too much for him and we were quite concerned when he slumped into a chair and sat there, ashen faced, for a few seconds to recover.  Even after the passage of 45 years, I can still remember that night when we said farewell to one of the finest officers I have ever known.  He died aged 95 on 20th September 2011.

Command of 5/WELCH was given to Lieut Col William Mostyn Gibbs who was, like Col ‘Rusty’, a seasoned veteran of WW2.  Bill Joined 1/WELCH in Egypt in July 1943 and during the invasion of Sicily had to swim for his life when the landing craft in which he was travelling was sunk. He went on to serve with 1/WELCH throughout the Italian campaign and returned from Trieste to UK for demob in 1946.  He rejoined the family firm, Western Cork Co. Ltd., as managing director and in 1951 joined 5/WELCH as a company commander.  He was promoted Colonel in 1965 when he was appointed Deputy Commander 160 Brigade and in 1969 was appointed Territorial Colonel (Wales).  Bill Gibbs was not a man to be trifled with – he knew what he wanted and God help anyone who stood in his way.  I felt the sharp lash of his tongue on a number of occasions but, like a summer storm, the dark clouds blew away and he was soon the efficient and considerate man I learnt to respect.  He died on the 9th of May 1991.

I used to see Colonel Bill once or sometimes, twice a week, and was surprised, therefore, when he suddenly appeared in my office at about 3pm one Wednesday afternoon.  He had had lunch with the General Officer Commanding Wales District in Brecon and I could see that something had upset him.  Whilst he was supping port the General observed that 5/WELCH had not won a major sporting trophy for five years.  “When are you going to do something about it?” he asked.  To give 5/WELCH its due, we had won or come close to winning, many of the minor events, but soccer was the preserve of 4/WELCH and the 53rd Welsh Division Rugby Challenge Shield was usually captured by 6/WELCH.  Colonel Bill looked me straight in the eye and said: “You have just over a year left to do something about it.  I want to see 5/WELCH’s name on that shield before you leave.”
    It was common knowledge that certain TA units enlisted ‘gladiators’ (sportsmen who did nothing other than play sport).  It had been the policy of 5/WELCH to shun this sort of activity but when my confidential report depended on success or failure on the sports field, I decided it was time for a change.
    One of the local rugby teams had recently returned from Berlin where they stayed with the 1st Battalion Welch Regiment during the course of a rugby tour.  They were very impressed with the Regular Army way of life and were just the sort of people I wanted to make my plan work.   I visited them one training night and told them how important it was for us to win the 53rd Welsh Div Rugby Shield.  I explained that we needed a better fly-half, a full-back who could actually catch a ball if it came in his direction and a few spare forwards if we were to  have any chance in the following year’s championship.  They were worried about losing their amateur status, so I told them they did not have to accept their pay if they did not want it, and that seemed to satisfy them.
    The following week, after receiving a call to say that my proposal had been accepted,  the Orderly Room Quartermaster Sergeant, WO2 ‘Jonah’ Jones, and I went to the clubhouse and signed them up.

I am going to jump ahead to 24th February 1963 when we met 4/WELCH in the semi-final of the 53rd Div Rugby Championship.  The result was a draw 8-8.   We met again on 31st March and this time we beat 4/WELCH 16-8.  The finals of the Championship were held at Maindy Barracks on Sunday 7th April 1963 between 5/WELCH and 6/WELCH. 
    At half time, 5/WELCH were trailing  8-0 and as the whistle blew my wife gave a yelp.  “What’s the matter<”  I asked.  “It’s coming,”  she replied.  “What’s coming?”  I said.  “The baby,”  she answered giving another yelp.  We had already packed a suitcase for her to take to hospital but neither of us thought the birth of our second child was imminent.  The priority was, of course, to cheer 5/WELCH through the second half to victory - which is what happened with a win of 11-8.  Nesta was just as hoarse as me and both of us needed a glass of champagne before embarking on the next important event of the day.  We left to another round of cheering and best wishes and then it was back to Pontypridd as fast as we could go.   Nesta was admitted to Church Village Hospital near Pontypridd at about 6pm and our daughter, Gilly, was born three hours later.  It was a good day.

I ran across my old batman, Marlow Offside, in Cardiff one day.  We chatted about the times we spent together in 1/WELCH in Germany and Cyprus in the ‘50s and I asked him if he was still interested in boxing.  He reeled off a number of recent successes which made clear he was well up in the amateur circuit, so I asked him if he would like to join 5/WELCH and be my batman again.  He promptly agreed and a few days later he was back in harness. 
    I had two things in mind – one, the Territorial Army Boxing Championships to be held in White City in May 1963 and – two, a TA exercise to be held near Folkestone, with me as an umpire. As to the former, Offside started training immediately and, for the latter, I gave him a warning order to be prepared to accompany me to Kent for a week.
    There had been a few outdoor occasions when we could have done with a caravan to accommodate guests, such as the Honorary Colonel.  There was no question of the TA Association paying for one, so we decided to make one ourselves.  We used an ordinary 3-ton load-carrying vehicle and fitted it out with a sofa and four comfy chairs, a bed, dining table and chairs, a chemical toilet and a calor gas stove.  We had a carpet on the floor and a stove pipe sticking out through the roof. 
    The first time we used it was in the 1962 Cambrian March.  There were a few wry looks from the General and his staff but when it was explained that the 3-tonner could revert to its usual role within half an hour, they seemed satisfied.  I decided to use it for the exercise in Kent.
    Offside and I travelled to Folkestone in a Land Rover with the ‘caravan’ following a hundred yards behind.   In the back of the Land Rover we had a radio, enough compo rations to last us for a week and  a bivouac tent for Offside and the 3-tonner driver. We arrived on Lapins Plain in time to set up camp and enjoy a meal provided by the directing staff. 
    The exercise started the following morning and we spent most of the day travelling about the countryside monitoring the movements of imaginary units and formations and reporting back to the DS by radio.  That night we set up camp on the edge of a wood and Offside prepared a meal from compo packs on a No. 1 burner.     
Other umpires, camped close by in bivouac tents, stared enviously at me in my luxurious ‘caravan’.
    Early the next day, Offside announced he was off on a training run but would be back in good time to prepare breakfast. He returned less than an hour later with a bag of eggs, fresh bread and some home cured bacon.  He told me he had spotted a farm the night before and had called in to find what was on offer.  It cost him nothing and the three of us, including the driver, had a splendid breakfast to start the day. 
    Offside found a new farm every day and got all the fitness training he required.  I did my umpiring work, attended O-Groups at Exercise HQ and let my staff look after me in the manner to which I had become accustomed.
    Soon after we returned, Offside went off to White City and won the light welter weight championship of the Territorial Army for 5/WELCH.
    Colonel Bill Gibbs was able to look the General straight in the eye after winning the Divisional Rugby Shield, taking one of the top trophies in the TA Boxing Championships and taking 4/WELCH to extra time in the Soccer Championship – only to lose by one goal.


Offside and I left the battalion at the same time in December 1963.  I did not see him again for many years and during our time apart he  divorced his wife, remarried, had children and was making a good living as a  school caretaker and professional boxing trainer. 
    He came to see me at the Prince of Wales’s Depot, Crickhowell in 1976 with a wicker cage full of pigeons.  He wanted to become a member of the Royal British Legion Pigeon Fanciers Club and asked me if I could give him a reference.  I was pleased to do this and I watched him as went through the procedure of preparing his birds for their comparatively short flight back to Cardiff.  I told him I was thinking about making a dovecot and erecting it in my front garden in Abergavenny.  He offered to provide me with as many birds as I wanted and returned two weeks later with two breeding pairs.  For the following 13 years, my dovecot and up to a dozen snowy white birds, was the focal point of interest for visitors and residents alike approaching Abergavenny from the east.
    I saw him again on 12 September 1983 when he came to Abergavenny with one of the boxers in his stable  who had just won the flyweight championship of Great Britain  My father, a founder member of 11th (Cardiff ‘Pals’) Battalion Welch Regiment in WW1, and a devotee of the noble art, died two days after he met the pair and held the Lonsdale Belt in his hands.

I look back on my days with 5/WELCH with great pleasure.  It was a shock to my system when I joined the battalion, but I soon got used to the ways of the TA and learnt that pride in oneself and one’s unit was the mark of a Volunteer. The experience I gained was most useful when I became Assistant Regimental Secretary of the Royal Regiment of Wales in 1980 and I like to think that my apprenticeship, all those years ago, made me a better person.


GOAT ON LOAN


For the last nine years of my service in the Army I was based at the Prince of Wales's Division Depot, Crickhowell from where I covered most of South Wales spreading the word about career opportunities with the Royal Regiment of Wales and the Royal Welch Fusiliers.  I had a team of twelve soldiers, a display vehicle, a mobile shooting range and the wherewithal to demonstrate  infantry weapons. The team was constantly travelling during the summer, and during the winter I used to arrange visits of school children to the Depot, stage Military Tattoos, and produce Regimental Band and male voice choir concerts in leisure centres within the principality.  To bolster my resources, I made use of Junior Soldiers wing at Cwrt y Gollen infantry training camp, the Territorial Army, branches of the Regimental Association and even In-Pensioners from the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, where my regiment (the Welch Regiment) was raised in 1719.  When I heard that 'Shenkin', the regimental goat of the 3rd (Territorial) Battalion, Royal Regiment of Wales was barred by quarantine regulations from going overseas to annual camp, I offered to look after him for the fortnight the Volunteers would be away.

I had forgotten about my offer until I arrived for work one Monday morning and saw  a trailer in the car park with SHENKIN painted in large white letters on the side.   Commanding Officer's Conference was the first event of the week, so I parked my car and joined other members of the Depot staff in the large room on the upper floor of Depot HQ.
     The Commanding Officer started off  by saying that a most remarkable incident occurred during the previous Saturday afternoon: "The 3rd Battalion goat arrived at the guard room,"  he began.  "The adjutant and I knew nothing about it and there was nobody on the phone at 3/RRW  in Cardiff." 
    I operated independently of Depot HQ and felt a tinge of conscience about not telling anyone and not making proper arrangements for its reception. I stuck my hand up and said:  "I'm sorry, Colonel, I should have asked you if we could look after Shenkin while the 3rd Battalion is away at camp," and as an afterthought, "I hope it's not too late."  The CO concerned is a good friend of mine and rarely loses his cool.  I must have touched him on a raw nerve as he exploded when he found that I was to blame.
    "Do you realise you nearly put two people in hospital last Saturday afternoon?"  he said, and then told me that if I had any more ideas about making the Depot an animal sanctuary, would I please ask  first.
    I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself, but it wasn't until I left the conference room that I found out about the two people I had nearly hospitalised.  It was the Quartermaster who gave me a 'blow-by-blow' account of what happened.
   
It seemed that a Land Rover towing a trailer pulled up at the guard room and the driver, who also happened to be the Goat Major of the 3rd Battalion, dismounted and asked the guard commander to sign for his goat.  "He's staying with you for two weeks while we are away at camp," he said, handing over a suitcase containing a green coat with regimental embellishments, two silver horn tips, a fore-head badge and a regimental cane.     The guard commander had been given no warning about the new arrival but, as the Goat Major was pressed for time, the first essentials were to park the trailer in the car park and put the goat  in the pen specially constructed for such eventualities.  This posed a problem as no one could remember a goat being accommodated there before.  The key was not in the guard room so a runner was sent around to the Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant's married quarter to see if he knew where it was.  "Ask the Drum Major to come as well,"  said the guard commander.  Another member of the guard was sent to the far end of the camp with a barrow and told to bring a bale of hay and a bale of straw from the stables to complement the fodder and bedding material already in the trailer.

Eventually, the Drum Major appeared followed a few minutes later by the RQMS who had found the key in the quartermaster's stores.  The goat was removed from the trailer and led across to its pen where the RQMS  was busy arranging straw on the floor of the sleeping quarters.  Goats can accelerate to 30mph over fifteen feet, which was about the distance between its horns and the RQMS's backside protruding from the bed space.  The impact hurled the warrant officer like a cannonball on a horizontal trajectory until his head hit the wall.  Shenkin then searched for another target and found one in the form of the Drum Major who had just locked the gate from the inside.  As he turned around, the goat butted him in the 'goolies' and incapacitated him as efficiently as it had done with the RQMS. 

Until it could be established why the regimental mascot of the 3rd Battalion had appeared in Cwrt y Gollen camp, a drummer was detailed to look after the animal, but after the CO's conference two days later, a member of my staff took over.
    Shenkin accompanied my team throughout the first week to agricultural shows and carnivals and was the centre of attention wherever he went.  Much of his time was spent eating whatever was offered and nibbling the fingers of young children who crowded around him.  Halfway through the following week, I gave him a day off and the (temporary) Goat Major tethered him to a stake on the opposite side of the road from the officers' mess in Cwrt y Gollen camp.  There, the grass was green and plentiful and was an ideal place for Shenkin to sit and chew cud.    

I was walking from my office to the mess for lunch one sunny day when I noticed the officers' mess cook sunbathing a few feet away from the goat.  I thought at the time it was a strange thing to do, but I put it down to the fellow's East European upbringing.  He had come to Britain as a refugee after the 1956 Hungarian uprising against communist rule and had made a name for himself  by producing his version of Hungarian goulash and other less well-known, but equally delicious, Magyar dishes.   The mess manager was asking if anyone had seen the cook as there was only ten minutes to go before lunch was due to be served.  I pricked up my ears and told him that he was sunbathing on the grass verge outside.  That startling piece of information was investigated and the mess manager found that instead of sunbathing, the chef was unconscious.
    Water was splashed on his face until he levered himself on one elbow and looked around.  When his eyes focused on Shenkin  munching grass a few feet away, he burst into a torrent of abuse in the Magyar dialect which, roughly translated, went as follows:  "You heathen goat whose mother should have been eaten by wolves - don't  expect me to get you out of muddle any more!"
    When the chef had been helped back to the kitchen and  given a glass of beer to assist his recovery, he explained what happened.
    "I went outside for a puff on my cheroot and saw the goat unable to move because his legs were tangled by rope.  We used to keep goats at home in Hungary and many times I have had to unwind rope so they could eat the grass.  I spoke quietly to the goat and told him not to worry as I would soon have him out.  When I had freed all four legs - he butted me here (pointing towards a large red swelling on his forehead), and I don't remember any more."
    There was talk that the chef was going to sue the Ministry of Defence for damages, but a quiet word from the Quartermaster about job opportunities for refugees made him think again and the matter was smoothed over.

A week later, the (permanent) Goat Major turned up to collect Shenkin.  Three members of the Depot staff, who were still nursing their injuries, were glad to see him go while the Commanding Officer - an old South Wales Borderer, had still to be convinced that Kashmir goats, even if they came from the Queen's herd in Whipsnade Zoo, should be elevated above their station.
   

Monday 17 October 2011

CREPE SUZETTE

I have always been suspicious about setting fire to things at the dining table. Not only is it a waste of alcohol, but it can be downright dangerous.
    It just so happened that Nesta, my wife, and I were in Barbados a few years ago staying in one of the best hotels on the island.  We had spent a full day taking photographs and making notes for a travel guide we were putting together.  We returned to the hotel, took a shower and made ourselves ready for a pleasant evening.

The Maitre d’hotel made us feel that we were the most important couple in the dining room as he led us to our table.  We studied the menu while we waited for drinks to arrive and took in the beauty of the scene – a blood red sun slowly sinking into the ocean while a phosphorescent sea spread wavelets on golden sand below us.  We could not help noticing a young couple sitting a few feet away who had eyes only for themselves.  Nesta winked at me and said: “Honeymooners.”
    A steel band played softly in an arbour of palm trees while a young Bajan strummed his guitar making sweet calypso music.  It was the ideal setting for romance and helped us to fall in love with the island.
   
The main course arrived and produced another dimension for an already perfect evening.  Now and again we looked at the young couple and they managed to take their eyes off each other and gave us a smile. 
    We paced each other throughout the meal but when we ordered a coconut and banana pudding they asked for  Crepes Suzette.  This required a certain amount of preparation and we were well into our pudding before a waiter returned with a trolley. 
    He started to do things with eggs, flour and sugar before reaching for a bottle of spirits.  With a flourish, he ignited the mixture from a canister of gas attached to the trolley and the whole lot exploded. 
    The young wife took most of the discharge and was covered in flames.  Her husband covered her in a table cloth and tried to put out the flames but what he did not realize was that he himself was on fire.  All this happened within a few seconds before he was forced to leap over the balustrade and jump into the sea. 
    In the meantime, other diners, including Nesta and I, flung ourselves upon the girl who was still on fire.  Eventually we succeeded in dousing the flames and the Hotel manager and his wife took over asking us to stand aside and make room for the emergency services.  The ‘honeymooners’ were taken away in an ambulance and that was the end of what promised to be a perfect evening.

There was no evidence of the fiasco when we went for breakfast the following morning and the Maitre d’hotel looked blankly at me when I asked him what had happened to the young couple.  Life had to go on in that most majestic of hotels. 



DIG FOR VICTORY

    
     I watched my grand-daughter, Ellie, share a bowl of olives with some of her friends a few months before her fifth birthday and marvelled at the sophisticated ways of children these days compared with me at the same age.   
It was not until 1948, when I was 22 years old and stationed in Cyprus that I ate my first olive. I was attending a cocktail party in the home of Mr Magubgub, a respected antiquary and authority on the ancient Roman town of Salamis.  He chuckled at my obvious dislike of the fruit and went on to tell me all there was to know about olives.  I persevered until I became used to the taste and have loved them ever since.  
    The first time I saw a chilli was when I was 21 years of age.  I was staying in a hotel in Maidstone close to a hospital where my girl friend was having her appendix removed.  The waiter brought around a trolley with a selection of salad items; on the middle tray was a red thing about three inches long.  Not knowing what it was, I cut it in half and popped one end in my mouth.  I was convulsed with chilli-burn and such a fit of coughing that  the combined resources of the dining room staff were needed to evacuate me to a less public place.   
    Another example of my blossoming awareness of exotic foodstuff was my introduction to smoked salmon.  What is now a common-place item on supermarket  shelves was, in my youth, as remote as Beluga caviar.  The apogĂ©e of smoked fish, as far as  I was concerned, was a kipper.
    It was in 1952, when I was serving in Malaya with the 3rd Battalion King's African Rifles.  My commanding officer ordered me to get some smoked salmon for a lunch party for the Commander-in-Chief, Far East Land Forces - General Sir Somebody-or-other.  Salmon, smoked or otherwise, was an unlikely first course for a VIP lunch in the remote area  of Central Pahang where we operated and was made even more so by the way I served it - like steaks. The commanding officer was furious but the  General was highly amused, and my gaff contributed to a memorable visit.
    I tell these stories about myself because it is almost beyond the comprehension of those who were born in the '60s' onwards to know what living conditions were like during the war years and into the '50s'.  Rationing of food  was not abandoned until 1953 and a year later television reached the provinces. Compulsory national service of two years in the Armed Forces  did not end until 1963 while supermarkets and package holidays did not make an appearance until well into the '60s'.
    I was nearly 13 when the second world war broke out and I lived a comfortable life in No. 38 Bron Awelon, Barry, South Wales with my parents who, I suppose, were  graded 'middle-class'.  My parents did not  have a car, but they owned their house and they sent me as a day-boy to Monkton House public school in Cardiff (where my paternal Grandfather was educated in the '1880s'. It was then called Shewbrook's College).  The food we ate at home was plain but nourishing.  It was based mainly on recipes from Westmorland, where my mother was born.  She was always a plump woman and the word 'diet' never entered her vocabulary.
    Even though food was rationed during the war, we never seemed to go short.  For this we had to thank the milkman who called on us every morning at eight o'clock.  He used to leave Ford Farm, Llancarfan in the Vale of Glamorgan at about 5am and drive his horse and cart about 12 miles before he reached the Barry Garden Suburb.  His mother was a lazy woman who refused to get up and give him his breakfast (it was most probably too early for him anyway).  My mother, guided by her maternal instincts and recognising an opportunity to gain extra rations, used to provide a man-size breakfast for Edward which usually comprised: porridge, eggs and bacon, fried bread, toast and marmalade.  He supplied much of the food plus lots of other things like butter, cream and guinea fowl.  The rub came each Friday when he presented the bill.  In addition to milk and eggs, he charged for all the other items he brought from the farm, which included the food he had eaten himself.  My mother was sharp as far as money was concerned and so was Edward.  Both recognised a bargain when they saw one.
    My father grew his own vegetables on an allotment south of Porth y Castell  about 300 yards from the house.  He and I used to carry buckets of water, when required, as none was laid on.  During the summer, we were self-sufficient in greens,  root crops, tomatoes and soft fruits.   
    Edward Williams, the milkman, was married during the war and lived in Ty-Newydd Farm not far from the present Cardiff (Wales) Airport.  He continued to supply my mother with extra food and he let my father have two furrows in one of his fields.  Edward sowed potatoes for us and my father and I attended to them during the growing phase.  When they were ready to harvest, we dug them up and put them in sacks which Edward kept in one of his barns.  In return, my father and I helped  with the cereal harvest.  
    Wheat threshing, in those days, was a combined operation involving neighbouring farmers who took it in turn to help each other when the threshing machine  visited their area.  Nowadays, the combine harvester is operated by one or two men (or women) and the whole process takes place on the field where the crop is grown.  Gone is the sight, sound and smell of the steam engine and the chatter of the threshing machine  munching its way through countless  stooks of wheat fed from an adjacent  horse-drawn wagon.  Gone also  are the restful interludes  to quench ones thirst on jugs of home made lemonade, wine and cider. 
    My mother's contribution to these great country gatherings was  helping to  prepare food for the men.  I remember one occasion when we stayed at Ford Farm for a few days during the harvest.  As I have stated previously, Edward's mother was a lazy person and did nothing other than provide  food for the other women to cook.  My mother was aghast to find one day that  only  tinned tomatoes and boiled potatoes were available.  However, that meal stands out in my mind as one of the best I have ever eaten, but my mother used to shudder at the memory.     
    My father and I used to catch fish in the sea, but this was never something we relied on.  My mother used to complain when she bought a pair of herrings for my father to use as bait.  He rarely returned with the equivalent weight in fish and it would have been easier and cheaper, as far as she was concerned, to have eaten the herrings.
    During the summer, I would sometimes lay a long line of baited hooks at the extremity of low tide.  Twelve hours later, during the night, whatever had been caught was revealed but, as nobody was about at that time, it was another twelve hours before the line was revealed again.  I used to catch a considerable amount of fish this way but as we (and most other people in the neighourhood) did not have a refrigerator, I had to give most of it away.  
    There was only one time of year when we could eat mushrooms and that was in the autumn.  My father and I used to go to Porthkerry Park and climb to the top of a steep hill we called 'The Mountain'.  A field at the top was a great spot for mushrooms and we used to bring them back inside my father's raincoat.  We  collected so many that, once again, we had to give them away. 
    My mother used to bottle summer and autumn fruits in Kilner jars. The fruit was boiled inside the jars which had spring clips and rubber seals.  Once they had cooled, they were hermetically sealed and would keep throughout the winter.
    My parents made country wines using  huge earthen-ware pots with  screw tops.  Elder flower and elder berry were the favourite ingredients but parsnip, beetroot, potato and wheat were also used to make some delicious wines.   I remember being woken one night by a huge explosion.  I thought it was a German bomb, but it was one of the earthen-ware pots.  The lid should not have been screwed down while fermentation was taking place, but my father had done just that, and the pot exploded.  Chunks of pottery were embedded in the ceiling and my mother was not amused.
    The Merchant Navy was our life-line during the war but luxury items were cut to the bone.   The only fruit we  saw from overseas were oranges. 
    I remember one occasion when a ship was blown up by a mine in the Bristol Channel.  The following day the Pebble Beach at Cold Knap, Barry was covered in crates of oranges.  Edward Williams, the farmer, opened a crate and tasted one - it was delicious.  He picked up an unopened crate and carried it back to his cart which he had left, with the horse, by the viaduct in Porthkerry Park.  When he got the crate home he found that the contents were 'marmalade' oranges (sour) and, as sugar was rationed, they were useless.  By the time he returned to the beach to collect the crate he had opened, there was nothing left!
    Rabbits were plentiful and were 'off-ration' in butchers' shops.  Lots of people put down snares, but we never did - although, once, I found a dead rabbit in a snare on the Cliff fields.  It was still warm so I slipped it into my coat pocket and took it home.  On the way, I met the old man who I knew laid snares and I tried to conceal the bulge in my pocket.  He used to work the allotment next to ours and on the following day he told my father he knew who had 'nicked' his rabbit.  My father was averse to lying and he made a poor job of trying to defend me. 
    My father was not usually squeamish but once he saw the white fur of a tame rabbit that my mother had ordered from Edward sticking out from underneath a blanket in the shed.  He refused to eat it and my mother, from then on, had to satisfy him that the rabbits she bought were wild ones.  When she could not get whole carcasses, she often used to buy rabbit heads which she would boil and give us three or four each.
    Offal such as liver, kidneys, brains, tripe and sweet-breads, all of which we loved, were not rationed but you had to know the butcher well enough to be among those who received 'under the counter' items.  Sausages, which contained offal were also hidden 'under the counter'.  Corporal Jones in "DAD'S ARMY' plays the part of a war-time butcher to a tee.
    Unless you bred your own chickens or were lucky, like us, to have a friendly farmer, a plump whole chicken was an expensive item reserved for very special occasions.  My mother used to buy 'boilers', occasionally, which she casseroled.  These were birds that had come to the end of their egg-laying days and would have been too tough to eat any other way.
    There was no such thing as vegetable oil.  Dripping, or suet, was  sold  by the butcher and the chips in which they were made were far superior to the bland products that are the norm these days.   My mother used to give me dripping sandwiches as a snack and another favourite of hers from her childhood were 'sugar shags' - brown bread, butter and sugar.  It sounds revolting by today's standards, but I loved them. 
    Another favourite was my mother's version of bread and butter pudding.  Not the light-as-a-feather concoctions you read about in the gourmet cookery books, but brown bread laced with treacle or golden syrup, eggs, butter and dried fruit.  When I joined the Army in 1944, I asked her to send me one.  It arrived in a  biscuit tin and was devoured the same day by me and the other five recruits who shared the hut.  I was the most popular member of the sextet and was elevated to greater heights every time another biscuit box arrived.
    Ice-cream was something you ate in the summer.  Few people had refrigerators before and during the war and, as there was a shortage of sugar, ice-cream was a luxury.  A boy used to come around the neighbourhood where we lived selling Wall's products.  He pedalled a tricycle with an enormous ice box on the front which contained Snow-Fruit and Snow-Cream in triangular shaped cardboard sleeves.  If I and my friends saw him pushing his load up-hill, we would help him in exchange for an iced lolly.  But when he had sold his cargo, we would envy him as he free-wheeled at enormous speed down two steep hills to Barry Town for a refill.  Snow-Fruit was just frozen coloured water and Snow-Cream was marginally more like real ice cream.  
    Once a week a Thomas and Evans's van from Porth in the Rhondda Valley used to deliver lemonade and other soft drinks.  My mother used to buy two flagons of dandelion and burdock.  There was a hefty deposit on the bottles, which were fitted with metal spring-clips.  No champagne cork ever made a more satisfying sound than one of these bottles when the clip was released.   
    We had an Irish terrier called Paddy.  He never went short of food as there was a shop in Barry Docks that sold meat 'unfit for human consumption'.  It was horse meat in the main, stained with  purple dye  but I expect the odd cow that died of natural causes found its way into the shop as well.    My mother used to boil it for the dog and the smell was mouth-watering.  I understood at an early age why French people like horse-meat. 
    Whale factory-ships used to berth in Barry Docks with their cargoes of whale oil from the South Atlantic.  Whale meat was also available but my mother was never tempted to buy any.     
    During my school-days in Cardiff, I used to have lunch in a 'British Restaurant'.  It was run by the Women's Voluntary Service and the food they served - certainly the one in Cardiff, was awful.  As far as I can remember, it was stew every day with  greens and root vegetables such as turnips, swedes and carrots and a small piece of meat swimming around, if you could find it.  Sometimes, even now, if I smell potatoes being cooked in big tubs, I recognise the smell that 'greeted me' in the British Restaurant.
    We never went out for a meal during the war and, as I was under 18 until I joined the Army at the end of 1944, I never went into a pub.  Pubs in those  days were for men to drink ale which was not always available due to the shortage of sugar. Women rarely entered and children - never.  The nearest I got to a pub was 'The Fox and Hounds' in Llancarfan.  It was during one of our visits to Ford Farm and I can remember my father going inside and bringing out some lemonade for my mother and me.  Alan Cobham's Air Circus was performing just outside the village and we watched him looping-the-loop.
    My mother did most of her shopping in Mr Bembridge's Barry Garden Suburb Stores.  It was what we would call a 'corner shop' these days being   only five minutes walk from where we lived at 38, Bron Awelon.  The groceries were delivered by a young lad on a bicycle - rather like a 'chopper' that my son, Richard, rode as a ten-year-old.  Big wheel at the back, a small one in front with a huge wicker basket on top.  Edith James, across the road, used to shop in the Co-operative Stores, about ten minutes walk away in Cambridge Street.  She used to try and get my mother to go there and she explained the advantage of the dividend (or 'divi') scheme - which made buying food cheaper. There was a certain amount of 'snobbery' about this.  The road below us was called Tan-y-Fron and that was where the Great Western Railway employees lived.  My mother would not have been seen dead shopping with them.
    Johnny Yeandle, the butcher - who had a shop in Cambridge Street, was, according to him, the adopted son of Stan Yeandle, who founded the business, but the likeness between him and the senior Yeandle did not fool anyone.  They both had heads like footballs, florid complexions and voices like fog-horns.  In about 1927, Stan Yeandle shot Pete, our wire haired fox-terrier and my parents  severed relations with him.  It was Pete's custom to call on his boy-friend, a cocker spaniel, each morning and both would hunt rabbits on the Cliff fields.  Neither of them chased sheep but, as Stan Yeandle had lost a number of his flock to killer dogs, he did not give Pete and his friend the benefit of any doubt when he saw them in his field one day. 
    When Stan died and his son took over the business, my mother resumed buying  meat from him. We never had expensive joints such as: rib of beef, shoulder of lamb and leg of pork.  Instead, my mother would buy: flank of beef, shin of beef and ox-tail.  A meal of roast lamb was always 'breast of lamb' and pork meals were either belly pork, pigs trotters or boiled bacon.  When I was serving in the Army overseas for six years from 1948-54, I used to dream about my mother's food.   When I returned, I couldn't wait for her to produce the old favourites - and they were just as delicious then as they always had been. 
    I thought I was worldly wise as far as foreign food was concerned and I attempted to make a curry for my parents - a dish that was virtually unknown in this country in 1954.  It didn't turn out as well as I expected, so my mother had a go.  What she made was, essentially, a beef casserole with added curry powder - but the taste was superb.  It was the first curry my mother made and she was surprised how well it was received by my father and me.  It became a favourite with all three of us.
    Nesta (my wife) and I, with our son and daughter  are a food-loving family. There is nothing more we enjoy than all 'mucking in' together in the kitchen.  Some of the meals I enjoyed in my youth are still among my favourites, but time has moved on and I'm glad to be a reasonably healthy 85 year old (2011) enjoying all the good things now freely available in super-markets, town and village stores, pubs and restaurants.