My Friend Harry caught the 7:25 a.m. train at Wool, Dorset, on an icy December morning with 14 other troopers of the Royal Armoured Corps. Behind them was Bovington Camp, its parade grounds, huts, tanks, mud and bawling drill sergeants; 12 weeks of agonising transition from civilians to soldiers.
Now, trained and ready for action, bowed down with everything in the world they possessed, they stamped their feet and blew on their hands and were on the point of learning how hard life in the Army really could be.
Harry was bound for the 9th Battalion, The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, at that time based in the grounds of Thoresby Hall, Nottinghamshire, still then the residence of the coal baron, Earl Manvers. The 9th Loyals, part of an infantry regiment, had recently been converted into the 148th Regiment, RAC, and issued with Churchill tanks fresh from the factory. It had, to its surprise, been given the distinction of being part of the 33rd Army Tank Brigade and the honour of being part of Montgomery’s 3rd Division. Harry, as a qualified tank driver, was to teach the former infanteers how to drive.
Harry arrived at Thoresby Hall at 3.15 a.m. the following morning, having, en route, been bombed in Southampton, bombed in London and bombed in Nottingham . He was given three blankets and told to bed down in Room 3a. That turned out to be an attic in the roof of Thoresby Hall, 85 steps up a spiral staircase. He slept, fully dressed. At 6 a.m. he discovered that the ablutions and latrines were in the courtyard, 85 steps down. Then 85 steps up again for knife, fork, spoon and mug and mess-tin and 85 steps down again to the mess tent. ”Burgoo?” inquired the chap dishing out the breakfasts. “You watch your tongue, friend," snarled Harry, in no mood for badinage. "Do you want burgoo or don't you?" said the man, raising his eyebrows. "What the hell's burgoo?" asked Harry. "Ooh, we've got a Little Willie from Peagrams!" exclaimed the cook. "A proper toff." (Peagrams was a department store in Liverpool and the height of social elegance to the slum lads of the Loyals was to be a 'Little Willie'-a shop assistant.) Harry, a lone southerner among the scrapings from the slums of Scotland Road and Bootle, saw the funny side. "Give me some bloody burgoo, then." he chuckled - and a big dollop of lumpy porridge filled his mess tin.
From then on, life was as hilarious as 500 back-street Liverpudlians could make it. Irreverent, belligerent, undisciplined, immoral, amoral, kind, generous, impulsive, the Whackers laughed at authority, ridiculed regimentation, learned swiftly and metamorphosed into a fine battalion.
A tragedy, indeed, that all but a handful - an actual handful-of those open-hearted, foul-mouthed extroverts were destined to be wiped out en masse in ten catastrophic minutes on the battlefield at Falaise in Normandy. By our own bombers, too.
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The history of the 9th Loyals may not mention Harry, but for all that he would still be remembered by doddering old veterans of B Squadron for two reasons -- had there been any survivors from B Squadron. One reason was the transformation he unwittingly wrought in the morning's netting procedures. First military duty every morning was to net in all the wireless sets in the back of the turrets of the tanks. Netting means tuning all sets to the precise wavelength and then locking on. The Army, naturally, had a drill for it. According to the book, the operator of tank No. 1 of Troop No. 1 opened the proceedings thus: "Able 1, Able 1. All stations Able 1 report my signals. Able 1, over." The replies would than come in somewhat as follows: "Able 2. Strength four. Able 2 over." "Able 3. Strength one. Able 3 over." And so on until all tanks reported maximum signal strength of five. Then netting ceased.
And that was how B Squadron netted in every morning - until Harry told Alfie Minshull about Abie. Alfie, ill-favoured in appearance but gifted with a soaring baritone voice and an endless repertoire of Victorian songs that ensured free beer for him and his friends at pubs in nearby Ollerton, listened enraptured as Harry recited the ridiculous:
“ABCD goldlfish? MN goldfish! SAR goldfish. OS! Goldfish.”
Spoken flowingly, that came out as: "Abie see the goldfish?’ Them ain't goldfish!' 'Yes they are goldfish.' 'Oh, yes! Goldfish.” Alfie was the wireless operator in the tank Harry was driving at the time, and the very next morning, Alfie's netting procedure was as follows: "Able 2, Able 2. ABCD goldfish? MN goldfish. SAR goldfish. OS, goldfish. All stations Able 2 report my signals. Able 2 over." And back came the delighted reply: "Able 3, Able 3. ABCD goldfish. MN goldfish. SAR goldfish. OS goldfish. Strength 3. Able 3 over."
The NCOs tried to stop this unmilitary drivel. The troop officers tried to stop it. The Squadron Leader threatened dire consequences and, sure enough, it stopped. But, insidiously, it would start all over again in a week's time... A year or so later Harry had it on the authority of no less a personage than Major Tommy Smith, his old B Squadron Leader one of the tiny few to escape annihilation at Falaise, that 'Abie' was alive and active in the squadron from the Normandy beaches to the very end.
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The other reason why Harry would have lived on in the memory of Troop 2, 9th Bn. the Loyals was his 'Hidey-hole'. He and the 14 other members of his troop of three tanks were accommodated in the spartan Room 3a up in the roof of Thoresby Hall. The sloping ceiling made it impossible to stand upright and the glimmer of light came from a small dormer window at floor level. Near that window was a tiny door designed to give access to the rafters and joists under the roof. It was locked and there was no key. That presented a challenge to Harry. What, he wondered might be behind that door? Pick the lock? Certainly, but the snag was that the door was tested each day as part of the Orderly Officer's tour of duty. If, suddenly, it were found to be unlocked, there would have to be a report and that would mean an inquiry and that would spell Trouble. So, in the manner of Blackadder’s resourceful Baldrick, he evolved a Cunning Plan.
First, he would pick the lock and then install a device by which the door could seem to be locked - to satisfy the Orderly Officer - but could be opened by those in the know. Via a Whacker in the regimental store, he purloined an ordinary door-bolt, a 2-inch nail, six screws and a 12-inch length of stiff wire. And on 'temporary loan' he obtained a hammer, a screwdriver and a pair of pliers. Ten minutes' work on the lock with the bent wire, and the door swung wide. Inside - nothing but lots of rafters, joists and dust. Then Harry screwed the bolt vertically to the inside of the door at the top, twisted one end of the wire round its knob and made a loop at the other end which hung exactly opposite the keyhole. He hammered the nail at the top edge of the door, hooked one end of an elastic band on it and hooked the other end to the knob of the bolt. Thus the elastic band held the bolt shut and prevented the door from being opened by an Orderly Officer.
How to open the door? Simple. Stick a pencil through the keyhole and through the loop of the wire hanging down inside. Depress the pencil against the resistance of the elastic band, the bolt would slide down and the door would be open.
This achievement was greeted with exclamations of wonderment by all beholders and with particular delight by batmen and those on fatigue duty. Safely behind the door, stretched out on planks, they could slumber the hours away safely hidden from the eyes of prowling NCOs.
An even more desirable use quickly became evident. The practice in the Loyals was for chaps going on leave, even for only 48 hours, to take with them everything they possessed except their blankets - the justification for this burdensome regulation being that should an emergency arise while they were on leave they would be fully prepared to go into action wherever they were.
With Harry's 'Hidey-hole' being available, however, impedimenta such as rifle, kit-bag, water bottle, large and small haversacks could be secretly hidden away. The owner could then board the duty truck to ride into town as though he was just off for a day at the pictures. This procedure worked absolutely splendidly for a month or two and abundant were the blessings on Harry's head. Until Jimmie Gillies went on leave, that is.
After a carefree ten days in Birkenhead, he returned to Worksop and looked around for the Loyals' duty truck to get him over to Thoresby. No truck. Anxiously he enquired at the RTO unit at the station.
"Gone, mate," they said.
"Gone?"
"That’s right. Week ago. The whole lot. Moonlight flit."
'Where've they gone?"
The RTO sergeant eyed him suspiciously. "You know better than that, lad," he said. "Secret, ain't it? Didn't they send word to you on leave?"
Jimmie vaguely remembered something coming through the letter-box but, being either stoned out of his mind or recovering from being stoned, he'd stuck it on the mantlepiece and forgot all about it.
“Then you'd better get back home and find out where you have to go," advised the sergeant. "Unless you want to be posted as a deserter, that is. You're going to be in trouble for being late back off leave, anyway"
Jimmie, close to tears, decided to pour out his heart to the sergeant. Well used to the fecklessness of common soldiery, the sergeant came to the rescue. The RTO Jeep took Jimmie to the deserted Thoresby, he climbed the 85 steps, recovered all his kit and went back to the station at Worksop. There, the sergeant gave him a warrant to enable him to get to Liverpool. Jimmie got seven days’ jankers for arriving late at the Loyals’ new base near Southampton.
And that was the last anybody ever heard of Harry's 'Hidey-hole'.
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