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Life went on much the same at Thomas Burnley’s, we
worked a five and a half day week, work started at 7.30
am to 5 pm week days and 12.30 pm on Saturdays. If you were
late arriving you were stopped at the main gate and had
to take a quarter which meant you went back for 9.30 am.
and lost two hours pay. One of the worst things about the
war was that cigarettes were in short supply, often when
shops had them in, queues quickly formed and you were lucky
if you got ten sometimes it was only five, and even worse
they were often a Turkish brand called Pasha which were
better than nothing but only just. Most shop keepers kept
the best brands under the counter for their regulars.
In 1943 my friend Bert went off into the Navy and although
I had been promoted to piecer I was not happy at work, the
work was hard and repetitive and to think of it as a career
was frightening it was also dirty oily and noisy so on 14th.January
1944 on my seventeenths birthday I went to the recruitment
office in Lady Lane Leeds and joined the Navy. There were
other reasons, the tide was turning and the war might soon
be over and I did not want to miss it, and even worse if
I waited to be called up I might have being sent down the
pit as a Bevin boy and that would have been worse than life
at Burnley’s.
I was called up and reported for duty to Skegness at a
converted Holiday camp. I spent the first few days been
injected, inspected, tested and kitted up, I was then interviewed
and soon realised that they were not going to give me any
gold braid and it was very unlikely that I would take command
of a ship even a little one. It appears that my general
educational standard and in particular my erratic spelling
was a factor and coloured their opinion of me. They said
I could choose, it was a be a stoker, seaman, steward or
cook. Well we reached a compromise and they agreed that
I could be an officers cook, which sounded a bit better.
After a few weeks I was sent to a camp at Great Malvern
for training and then on to the Royal Naval barracks at
Devonport. While at Malvern we were informed that there
was a shortage of recruits for the army and a raffle took
place, those whose name were drawn out had to leave the
Navy and join the army, there were hundreds standing in
the barrack square and you could have heard a pin drop it
was so quite, I was excluded from the draw being a boy and
a volunteer.
After only a few days at Devonport I was instructed to
go by train and report to the Navel Barracks at Londonderry
in Northern Ireland. This entailed a thirty-six hour journey
by train and boat from Plymouth via London and Stranraer
most of the time sitting on my kit bag in the corridors
of crowded trains. I was told that I was to be on relief
to cover for cooks who were on leave or sick, my first stint
was two weeks at a signal station at Magilligan Point, this
was a small station and their task was to challenge ships
entering Lough Foyle which was the entrance to Londonderry
docks. It was odd that the Ulster side of the lough was
in total darkness and there was lights on the Irish side.
On my return to Barracks I was instructed to report to
HMS Inman a Captain Class Frigate, I was taken to the docks
by truck and was excited to see a collection of corvettes
and frigates tied up side by side. Frigates were not the
large powerful ships they are today but were not much bigger
than corvettes, they had a small gun and depth charges and
were used on anti submarine duties. I had to step over from
ship to ship to reach HMS Inman, reported for duties and
was shown my quarters.
The next day we went out on trials and my action station
was with the ships steward in the gun magazine, suddenly
the hatch above us was opened and the gunner asked for an
HE., all the shells had markings on them but neither of
us knew their meaning. So we took a shell at random and
hoped for the best, sadly it was a star shell and did nothing
for the Captains appraisement.
The trials over, the steward and I had a sort of meeting
with the First Lieutenant, he more or less let us know that
the Captain was not very happy but he did give us a card
that listed the markings on the shells which he felt might
help us in the event of any real action. After a short stay
in port the Inman and a group of corvettes left to escort
a convoy to America, for the whole trip the weather was
atrocious the waves were like great moving mountains and
at times the ship was under water and seemed to pop up like
a cork. The short walk from the mess to the galley was like
dicing with death holding on to a overhead safety rope,
once safe in the galley dripping with ice cold water you
had to dry out in front of the ovens. In one way we were
better off that our mates on the corvettes, the Inman had
been built in the US and was fitted with bunks, hammocks
look romantic but on a small ship in rough weather you would
be better on the floor. Most of the ships in the convoy
were liberty ships built for us by America and when their
bows went down into the waves you could see the screws spinning
round in thin air but they seemed to stand up to it, at
times like this you felt grateful for the help the Americans
had given us.
At the end of the trip we docked at St. Johns in Newfoundland,
there were lots of other ships most of them were Canadian.
It was the new year and one of the Canadian ships had had
a change of roles in which the officers dressed up in ratings
gear and a selection of ratings dressed up as officers.
They must have decided to have a bit of fun with the toffee
nosed British and a group of these lads led by a rating
in a full Commanders uniform paid one of our ships a formal
visit to wish the officers a happy new year. The red carpet
was laid down for them and the best quality drinks were
brought out, there was much laughter and drinking in the
wardroom, which ended with the visitors leaving with a lot
of singing and shouting unbecoming of officers, we were
all having a good belly roll having being let into the secret
by the Canadians, our officers by the way were not amused
when they found out. I was impressed by the less formal
and more relaxed relationship between officer and men on
both the Canadian and American ships, particularly ashore
on social occasions when they seemed to mix together in
a way unheard of among the British. I was beginning to have
doubts about the rigid class structure in our armed forces
which I had accepted up to now without question.
We joined a new convoy for the journey home and the weather
was much better, you were able to stand out on deck and
see the heavy loaded ship plodding on with the corvettes
buzzing round like shepherds keeping them in line. We had
one call to action stations but were not able to find a
submarine, after lots rushing up and down at full speed
with the ship shaking like a Leeds tram we settled down
and things returned to normal.
The war in the north Atlantic was now about over although
I believe at the end of the war a few U-boats sailed into
Londonderry and gave them selves up. Any way I was sent
back to Devonport and having helped to clear up the Germans
was promptly sent out to the Far East no doubt to see if
I could help dispose of the Japanese. I sailed on the Durban
Castle and all on board had a smashing time, playing cards
with tins containing 50 cigs as stakes which would have
make my mates back home jealous, and these were not woodbines
by the way but John Player export, Senior Service and even
Three Castles. The journey through the Suez Canal on this
large ship was spectacular for an eighteen year old from
Batley and I shall never forget it.
We arrived at our destination which was Colombo in what
was then Ceylon. I looked out over the city in disbelief
that I could be here in this land of mystery. We were taken
in trucks to a transit camp just out side the city and I
spent my first few days and sometimes nights making Cornish
pasties and peeling potatoes for the hoards of people we
had to feed.
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