AN ORDINARY MAN - PART 2 - HOLIDAYS ABROAD!

It is now time for me to go abroad and get brown at the Government’s Expense.

After getting my official clearance, I think I went to Wilmslow, to meet hundreds of other sun-seekers, and then on to Yarmouth or Blackpool, I can’t remember which place, to have some lectures and to collect our kit. I’m getting a bit hazy now, but I think we got the kit in Woolworths. I can remember walking out of the shop with a heap of khaki clothing with a topee on top, and of course being at the seaside there were plenty of people about, and one of them asked me where I was going. I said ‘on holiday – would you like to come with me?’ No takers!

I must go back to Civvy Street once again as I’ve just remembered that Rose’s sister Violet had been evacuated to Huntingdon but had come back for some reason or the other for a week or so and was going back to Huntingdon, so Rose and I said we would go back to the coach with her.

This meant going to a site near Kings Cross Station; we must have got some sort of transport there and back after seeing Vi onto the coach, and I must say our journey there and back was very dodgy, as there was an air raid going full blast all the time. We could hear bombs going off and the Fire Brigade men were doing a great job trying to control the fires. I don’t mind telling you that we were glad to get home where it was quiet in comparison!

I think I had better get on with my story and go overseas before I change my mind.

At this Camp we had the usual amount of going hither and thither with a few more inoculations etc. before getting on the train to Liverpool Docks. There were plenty of Service Police on the train just in case anybody didn’t want to go, but there wasn’t much chance of that, we got so close to the ship that I thought the train was going abroad as well!

Once aboard, we were told and shown where to go for sleeping quarters, mess quarters, this is where we slept, had our food and kept ourselves amused. We were introduced to our hammocks and shown how to sling them (hang them from hooks welded to the ceiling) and how to pack them up and where to put them when they were not in use. The hammock had to be stowed away very, very tidily, and probably had more space for them than we had to use them at night. Never having been in a hammock before I thought it would be a hard job to get used to it, but I was wrong for we were hanging up there so close that we just climbed over each other and couldn’t fall out if we tried, and of course we all swung together with the sway of the ship.

One day two of us had to be the escort for one of the men who was put on a charge (something to do with the hammocks) and had to wear full uniform and wear our topee. I felt like a walking mushroom, and I forget what happened to the man on the charge.

The toilets (the Heads, the bogs etc) were a bit rough, and I don’t think I had any better ones until I’d been abroad and got back home.

Apparently the water was sea water so special soap was issued. Plenty of men were seasick and plenty had the runs, so you can guess what the heads were like as the ship rolled; not a pleasant sight. I’ll write more about toilets as my story unfolds and the occasions arise.

To be fair, the food on board was quite good, and we were all given jobs to get it and do other odd jobs. Once I had to get the bread and lost my way on the way to the store, got there just before it closed, and was saved from being slung overboard. Unless you have had to walk all over a big ship, you will never know how many stairs and corridors you will have to go up and down.

I forgot to say that this ship was the P & O liner MALOJA of 10,000 tons. There is a story connected with this ship, for many years after when I was settled down in Civvy Street, I was in the Post Office to collect my Old Age Pension, and picked up and took home a free magazine that was on the counter. Rose and I looked at it but my daughter Linda read it, and then said ‘Don’t you recognise the ship on the magazine Dad?’ I confessed I didn’t but it turned out to be the Maloja!! I got in touch with the author who told me where to get more information about the Maloja, and the outcome was that my Linda persuaded me to make a model of the ship, which now sits on the windowsill in the front bedroom!!

Shortly after being demobbed from the RAF, I was working for a builder, and while we were talking about the war, one of the men said he had been on the Maloja. What a coincidence! I also forgot to say that the author himself had sailed in the Maloja several times before the war.

Once we had made ourselves ‘comfortable’ aboard ship, we set sail, turned right to North America (or should I say turned West) and turned back again and went all down the West coast of Europe to South Africa to the Cape, turned North with Ceylon on our starboard side until we eventually stopped at Calcutta.

Before that, we called in at Bombay and were booked in at Worli Transit Camp where I and many others had a haircut, and after that what little hair I had before I had to comb right back. Just outside the Camp was an ultra modern petrol filling station, all chrome and polish; all round were little old ‘shops’, and there were sacred cows walking the street, doing what they wanted to do, while every so often any man would get behind the animal, rub its tail between his hands and say a little prayer I think. Old and Modern!

I must say my sense of direction is terrible so it’s a good job I didn’t get into the RAF as a navigator or else I would have been up the creek without a paddle, so I think that between North America and Calcutta, I’ll put my thoughts down about my travels as they enter my head.

Remember my memory is shaky so I may not get the order of reaching places right, but in Cape Town we docked for a short time and had good view of Table Mountain, and it looked so flat on top it could have been hand-made to order. It was here we saw men chained together as they walked along. At least that’s what it looked like. We pulled out of Cape Town and sailed to Durban where we first got off the ship and had a march along the shore and through the town. After that we were allowed off the ship every afternoon for several hours.

It was at Durban we saw the legendary Woman In White who it was said met every convoy docking there, and welcomed us in song.

There were lots of big buildings. I suppose they were skyscrapers and we went to the cinema a couple of times. The ones we went to had hard seats with high backs fitted with shelves on top (like church stalls) and that was handy as tea was supplied. That was vastly different to the cinema we went to in Calcutta as it was big, just like home.

At Durban I was cautioned by a South African Air Force SP who told me off for having the top button of my tunic unfastened!!

Cricket was played on every bit of ground, big or small all over Bombay and Calcutta, but we didn’t see much football.

We saw plenty of small shops and restaurants in Calcutta and Bombay, and it was in Bombay (The Gateway To India) where I had my first and only Indian meal in a proper Indian Restaurant, but it was half a baked chicken – BUT NO CURRY!

I seem to remember we got off the ship at Calcutta but not before we were all inoculated once again with I think blunt needles for we all had blood running down our arms after the Medical Orderlies had finished with us – in fact the one who did me actually apologised to me after he bent the needle getting it in.

We were told that the jabs were because there was famine ashore and when we got off the ship we saw plenty of dead bodies around, covered in their clothing, and looked like they were sleeping.

Some of the things I will always remember of India are the smell of burnt onions, hundreds of people around, the sound of them clearing their throats which resulted in great splashed of betel nut on the ground as they chewed the stuff (The Song Of India).

My thoughts have gone back to Henlow, and I remember going on parade most mornings and seeing an airman with a bicycle jump on the bike after putting on one cycle clip, and tearing around the parade ground, getting off the bike at each corner and blowing on his bugle. I think it was to bring us all to attention after we got over laughing!

Back to India and being posted to I think 131 RSU (Repair and Service Unit) which meant the start of a long train journey starting from Calcutta railway station to a dead end stop by a river (don’t ask me which) and small dock. There were plenty of bodies on the station at Calcutta, some sleeping and some dead. We were allotted a compartment, I think there was about 15-20 of us, and had to fight off ‘gatecrashers’ who were trying to get in our compartment which had wooden seats and a separate part for a toilet. This was just a hole in the floor with places to put ones’ feet and a couple of handgrips, but no seat. I can’t remember if there was any water to flush away the mess, but plenty of smell.

At that period of time the train usually carried passengers inside and outside the train, and probably on top. The engine was a monster, puffing and blowing, and we used to go to the train to get boiling water supplied by the driver and fireman to make tea to go with our rations. We did see the Guard who took orders for food. Apparently he phoned the orders through to a particular station many miles ahead and the train would stop to take on board the food. I think we were on the train for a couple of days and nights and was finally stopped at the station and dock I have previously mentioned. It was the middle of the night, very dark with hundreds of people going about their business all carrying little cans of water.

The train seemed to be in a siding but there didn’t seem to be anybody in authority, but after a lot of pidgeon English etc and consulting with the Indians we found the train had finished its journey, so gathering up our equipment we went to the front of the train and were glad to find the station/dock had a ticket office and we were told we had to finish our journey by river boat, which we guessed would be a nice change after the train.

I can’t say how big the dock was as it wasn’t quite daylight but light enough to see our next method of transport. The ship was typical of river boats I had read about as a boy. It was quite long and low with a canvas awning above the deck from the bows to what appeared to be a building of some sort which we later learned to be the Bridge with some sort of accommodation below. The awning finished before this, and we could see that under the awning the deck was covered with natives together with their worldly belongings, including animals etc.

We were allotted the deck space all round the Bridge at the stern of the ship, not covered by the awning, so luckily it was the dry season.

After a while one of the crew members came to us and asked if we wanted any dinner (Connor) and of course took our orders. Shortly afterwards we were taken to the dining room which was in the Bridge building and was quite big. There was a huge table in the centre which was surrounded by half a dozen native waiters, wearing white clothing, white as the driven snow, and red sashes. There were windows all round and a huge window from side to side and to the ceiling, and these gave a smashing view along the river.

We were all sitting round the table and were served by the aforementioned waiters. There was a great variety of food. I had chicken, and we all declared it was delicious, and we couldn’t have been better treated anywhere, and it was a great surprise as we hadn’t visualised anything like that onboard the ship, or any ship for that matter, and it was better than anything we had in the future. A very nice memory.

I can’t remember how long we were on that ship, and when we docked we were transported to an empty college building just inside Dakar.

The building was just off the main road with large open spaces on two sides. After signing in we were shown our bed spaces in a large room with spaces for many men.

There were big open spaces for windows (no glass) with a balcony on one side. Almost the first Airman I saw (we were all called Airmen even if we didn’t fly) was Phil Saker who was the chap who worked with me at 61 MU (maintenance Unit) whilst waiting to be put back on the draft that had been postponed for a time. As you can guess we were pleased to meet again, saying ‘what a coincidence’, but he said I had another surprise in store, and took me to the workshop and said to me ‘Do you recognise that packing case Lou?’ It was one of the packing cases we had made when we worked together while he was on Draft. That was a surprise!!

Another surprise I got was while I was reading a Samuel Jones magazine sent to me by Len Nicholson who had worked there before he joined the Royal Corps of Signals, and at that time was in the Middle East, when Lofty Adams who had the charpoy a couple of places past me, asked me where I had got the magazine from. Surprise, surprise he had also worked at Samuel Jones and was a friend of Len, so that was a surprise all round.

We had pretty good food at 131 MU, and a good mess room indoors. One day we had several Airmen from another unit to mess with us and here I met a chap who knew my cousin Arthur Utton. Another surprise.

One of the open spaces by the college was very rough ground, all up and down and this was given us as a football ground, so one day 30 or 40 Indians arrived, squatted down in a long line right across the field and started bashing the ground with some sort of tools, moving forward as they worked. When they had finished, the field was as flat as a pancake, ready for football, but we didn’t get to use it before we moved away.

Our main work was making a jetty along the riverside some distance from the College (our base) and was dug into the river bank which at that time was about ten feet higher than the river, and finished on a couple of large pontoons floating on the river. I never did find out the name of the river, but I’ll have to ask my Linda to check it for me.

I guess the river was low as it was the dry season, and it was very hot, probably made more so by the sun reflecting off the water. I should point out that the jetty had been started by other people, and didn’t look very strong to us.

In India there always seem to be hundreds of people about, and there were plenty of small boats about carrying several people aboard who it was obvious were the boat-owners’ families.

These boats were small, no cover overhead with a small deck at the bows and a roughly made plaited bamboo cabin at the stern. Everything was done on the boat, cooking, sleeping, eating, washing etc., and the cabin accommodated the toilet which went into the river, so it was the Indian version of a house boat.

There was always plenty to see: the fishing by net was interesting but I can’t remember any fish being caught. Everything seemed to go into the river so we never used it to cool off. I can’t swim anyway. We were transported to and from the jetty by lorry - thank goodness as what with the different types of vehicles going past, walking wasn’t very attractive.

Back at the camp we had all the usual duties to perform, one being guard duty, near the lorry section and oil stores. This ended near a street which was always thronged with people day and night. I don’t think they ever slept. There was no fear of falling asleep on guard duty what with all the street noise, flying foxes flying just overhead sounding like aeroplanes, and the oil drums in the oil shed sounding like gun shots as they contracted after the heat of the day had gone.

The best guard duty was on the high roof of the building next to the ‘football ground’. We had a sten gun and an Aldis light, hand held that we had to shine round the camp as far as possible. This was very interesting for the piards (wild dogs) which roamed the camp and everywhere else seemed to be attracted by the light, so everywhere we could see two bright spots of light as their eyes were illuminated.

We were at Dakar camp until the rainy season started which gave us the opportunity to strip off in the open and have showers under the streams of water that came from the gutter pipes from the flat roofs. We were happy and so were the girls who worked in the room at the end of the building we didn’t know about.

This is the end of my Dad’s manuscript in his own hand. The last paragraph of this section was dictated to me.

It was here at Dakar in the big college that they were building and we took over, that I suffered from heatstroke. I went all floppy and fell over.

It didn’t last long.