When the trumpets of war sounded on September 2, 1939, My Friend Harry was not first in the queue at the recruiting station. Even if his chest had been bursting with heroism - and it wasn’t - he couldn’t have joined the queue. He was in what was then described as a Reserved Occupation. There were lots of reserved occupations in 1939. Politicians, most certainly, were in one. Doctors were in one, dentists were in one, firemen were in one, munitions workers were in one, merchant seamen were in one, police were in one, miners were in one, journalists were in one, even agricultural labourers were in one. It sometimes seemed that there were more reserved occupations than unreserved ones, and maybe there were.
The Great and Good who controlled the nation’s affairs at that time probably considered that the British Expeditionary Force was more than capable of taking care of anything that Hitler and his lot could throw at us. When Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain spoke of the ‘awful might’ of the British Army, only one voice was raised in contradiction. It was that of Winston Churchill. He suggested that if the word ’pitiful’ was substituted for ‘awful’, the Prime Minister would be nearer actuality. As was usually the case, Winston was right and, as was usually the case at that time, he was howled down.
But after ‘Hitler and his lot’ had chased the British Expeditionary Force out of Europe and across the Channel via Dunkirk, it dawned even upon the Great and Good that some severe re-thinking was required. So, they started by re-thinking the Reserved Occupations categories. And they also gave considerable re-thought to age levels for exemption. And having counted the number of divisions which the enemy had hurled across their borders in the blitzkrieg and had calculated how many more had been held in reserve and had learnt the hard way that German tanks weren’t made of cardboard after all, they reluctantly came to the conclusion that the British Expeditionary Force strength really had been ‘pitiful’ - though of high and valiant quality - and Great Britain had a real problem on its hands.
So, the build-up started and conscripts were drafted and the long process of rearming was set in motion. But meanwhile, might not Great Britain be next on the list for invasion? Indeed, it might. Visions of clouds of paratroops descending upon the Home Counties were all too clear. How to cope with those? Shoot them down as they floated to earth or shoot them down as soon as they touched ground. Great. But who would do the shooting? The decimated Army, still recovering from Dunkirk, could not be everywhere.
Then someone came up with a wonderful idea. Civilians would. Civilians were everywhere, so all you had to do was give them something to shoot with, give them a bit of basic training in aiming and trigger-squeezing and Bob’s your uncle. Naturally, there’d have to be a bit of organising and grouping and so on. Couldn’t have a lot of individuals charging about and brassing off at will. And thus was born the force known as Local Defence Volunteers made up of civvies with armbands bearing the initials LDV.
My Friend Harry, still in his reserved occupation, joined up right away. All he had to do was go to the Police Station and give his name, age, address and occupation. Two days later he was instructed to see, of all people, the Town Clerk of Reading. My Friend Harry, with two other volunteers, was to protect the Town Hall in case German invaders tried to take it over.
The affable Town Clerk offered the trio tea and biscuits, told them they’d be shown over the building so they’d know where everything was, and then introduced them to one of the municipal clerks who had been in the Cadet Corps at his school. He, said the Town Clerk, would instruct them in matters military.
And so he did, having first sent out for four broomsticks. “No rifles, I’m afraid," he said. “We’ll have to make do with these."
“How the hell are we going to defend the Town Hall with bloody broomsticks?” asked My Friend Harry, having visions of German shock troops charging up the road with machine guns spraying lead.
“Sorry, old chap,” apologised the clerk. “Nothing else available." And as he was at as much of a loss as the dismayed LDV recruits, he embarked on such vital anti-invasion instruction as how to salute, how to stand at ease, how to come to attention, how to slope broomsticks, present broomsticks for inspection, carry broomsticks at the trail and fix invisible bayonets on them.Thus prepared to fight the Nazi hordes and thus armed with a stout broomstick, My Friend Harry turned up at the Town Hall at 4 p.m. to do his eight-hour stint at the front entrance. Nobody told him that real soldiers only did two-hour guard duties-two hours on, four hours off. Nobody told him anything. He just turned up, collected his broomstick and stood around looking foolish and trying not to use the broomstick on the derisive passers-by. When the municipal staff had all gone home, he collected a chair from the nearest office, placed it within sight of the front steps and sat down out of sight.
Time passed very slowly, nevertheless. After three such idiotic stints, he opted out of the LDV and joined the staff of the Air Raid Precautions Control Centre which was located in a cellar in the Town Hall.
That was much more to his liking. When not actually controlling anything, he had the run of the canteen and the games room and, on quiet nights when the Luftwaffe was busy elsewhere, he could sleep on a camp bed, with free breakfast laid on at 6 a.m. Luckily for Harry, when the bomb plunged through the pavement and exploded in the Control Centre killing all on duty, he was a proper soldier with real rifle and bayonet and was miles away in Dorset.
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That was after he had had the pleasure of meeting Major Freddie Knox. When it became evident that, what with one setback after another in various theatres of war, the Army needed more chaps to keep up the numbers, My Friend Harry reckoned that journalists were for the chop so far as Reserved Occupations were concerned. So, in order at least to be able to choose which arm of the Service he would join, he decided the time had come for him to volunteer. The Navy was out because he had a fear of heights and could never climb rigging, if they still climbed rigging in the Senior Service. The RAF was out because of implacable feminine opposition from his nearest and dearest. So, the Army It would have to be.
Not the infantry. Crawling about in the mud was not Harry’s idea of soldiering. He’d opt for tanks. At least he’d be sitting down in a tank. So, one morning Harry walked along Bath Road, Reading, and entered the modest little recruiting office.
A lance-corporal was sitting at a blanket-covered trestle table reading Razzle and smoking a fag. He looked up. “Yes?” he asked.
“I want to volunteer,” Harry said bravely.
“Half a tick," said the corporal. He put down his fag and the pornographic magazine, knocked respectfully on the door in the far wall, opened it and announced: “A volunteer to see you, sir.” “Right," came a cheery voice. “Wheel him in.”
Harry was wheeled in to see a paunchy, elderly chap in Service dress, clearly some pensioned-off time-server dragged in to do his bit in the war. “Come in, my dear fellow,” he said enthusiastically. “Knox is the name. Freddie Knox. Sit yourself down. Smoke if you like. No formalities here.”
Nor were there. Buff-coloured forms were produced in rapid succession, completed at the double and signed in triplicate. “Right, that’s it, then," beamed Freddie. “You’re in the Royal Armoured Corps now. Get your calling-up papers in a couple of weeks or so. Could be Bovington. Could be Tidworth. Could be Catterick. And good luck to you, young man.”
There was a pause. Then Harry hesitantly brought up the subject of money. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “I thought there was some sort of payment if you volunteered.”
The Major, a loss to the stage if ever there was one, put on a masterly show of forgetfulness. “Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “Clean forgot about it. Of course there’s a payment. Five bob. So glad you mentioned it.”
Harry wondered how the Major could possibly have forgotten the five shillings (25p) when ten sixpences were standing in an unsteady column right in front of his blotter. Five shillings was then about one-tenth of the average weekly wage in Britain.
“What’s the time?” asked Freddie, looking at his watch. “Bless my soul, I do believe they’re open. Why don’t we pop across the road to celebrate your new military status?" He scooped up the 5s and led the way to The Turk’s Head, and there he and Harry celebrated until all ten sixpences had gone into the landlord’s till. Then they went their separate ways, Harry to his home, the Major to his office across the road where, no doubt, he set up another column of sixpences in readiness for the next mug.
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