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Reproduced by
kind permission of the author 23487105 APPRENTICE TRADESMAN JOHNSON GF – INTAKE
56B - ARMOURER This is the
story of John Johnson's early years in the Army at the Army Apprentices
School, Arborfield I was three months past my fifteenth
birthday and of an independent mind when on 28 August 1956, I set out with
very little fear or trepidation on a lifetime adventure. It began with a
train ride to My next clear memory is of being seated
in the recruiter's office and then being duly sworn in together and signing
on the dotted line. In retrospect it was somewhat foolish to expect a
fifteen-year-old lad to really know enough of life to commit himself to a
three‑year apprenticeship followed by nine years with the Colours. So
in that short and meaningful ceremony, I signed away twelve years of my life
to the service of my country for a starting wage of 31 shillings and sixpence
per week, before deductions. An adult decision by a child. I remember there
was a photographer from the local paper and the resultant picture shows the
small group of us sitting around a table in the recruiting office, all
smiling as if we had won a prize. What the picture does not show is the paper
carrier‑bag jammed behind my back which contained one change of
underwear and socks plus washing kit, carefully selected by my father. It was
fraudulent to give me shaving gear, I couldn't raise any more than bum‑fluff
and managed well into my twenties with shaving only every other day.
At the Brighton Recruiting Office, taken by
a photographer from the ‘Brighton Evening Argus’ on 28 August 1956. L to R: third me, without tie, next Suggett and Fry, last right Noble.
The other three I can't remember. Leaving home was nothing new
having spent some years with my grandmother, up to and after my grandfather's
death, then later a couple of years at a British Army boarding school in
Hamm, Germany, when my father's regiment (The Royal Sussex) was posted to Minden.
The school was Whether
we each received a train ticket to Wokingham in Arborfield was
the home of the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, the
Regular Army corps that we would all be going to once our three-year
apprenticeship was successfully completed. Poperhinge Barracks, the REME
Depot, was a few hundred yards up the road from the AAS. In reality
Arborfield was a village around which a garrison had grown. We rounded the
curve where the local watering hole was situated, swept passed the REME Depot
on the right and dropped down a gentle slope to the entrance of the AAS,
spelled out in full across the arched entrance. This entrance road ran
straight ahead through the main part of the camp and out through the playing
fields to the back entrance, adjacent to the garrison hospital. Immediately
to the left of the main entrance were the guardroom and cells. Next the
gymnasium, behind that a playing field, and then the Permanent Staff
Sergeants' Mess. A road separated this block of buildings from the first row
of roughly U shaped spider blocks. There was a single row of these blocks
separated into two sections which constituted ‘A’ and ‘B’ Company, they
stretched off to the right going slightly uphill. Next came the cookhouse.
Behind the cookhouse and separating ‘A’ and ‘B’ Company from the other
Companies was the square, on which many a happy and unhappy hour was spent.
The left side of the Camp's main through road was occupied by administration
buildings, company offices, QM's stores, NAAFI block and Band Room, School
HQ, the armoury and then three more Company Offices, finally followed by the
start of the playing fields and an athletics track. The educational
classrooms were separated from the accommodation spiders by a road running uphill.
After the classrooms the workshops, large steel structures, cool in the
summer and achingly cold in the winter months. Thereafter the sports fields
and sacred cricket pitch. In three years we were to come to know these fields
intimately, as well as the QM's Stores, the cookhouse and the attached boiler‑room. We were assigned to Headquarters
Company where the initial training phase would take place, square bashing and
other soldier‑like activities necessary to ensure that one fits into
the system. This phase lasted six months, after which we would be detailed
off to one of the other four Companies, where we would be promoted to 'Two
Division' and (unofficially) able to bully the
new intake. We would spend the remaining two and a half years of our apprenticeship
in our appointed Companies. My intake was designated 56B, indicating the year
and second intake of the year, there being two intakes, January and August,
January's lot were 56A. We were jealous of our intake number and as all boys
do, we thought it was superior to any other.
At the start as an Apprentice Armourer Intake 56B I was a chancy bargain as far as
the Army was concerned, having been selected more for my cadet experience and
record than my already stated dismal academic abilities. In addition, I was
later to discover that more than one of my contemporaries in the AAS had been
given an alternative by a juvenile court, 'The
Army or a Borstal Boys detention centre'. So much for the touted
selection process! Of what value was I? The AAS worked on a six-division
system, beginning with One Division (basic training) then progressing every
six months to a higher Division until reaching Six Division, which was the
last six months of one's apprenticeship. By then many were receiving Regular
Army rates of pay, because of their age. Our apprentice rates were somewhat
less. To the rest of the Regular Army we were known as 'boy soldiers'. We 'new boys' were shown into our
barrack's spider block and put in the charge of an Apprentice Corporal. That
is to say that he was an apprentice who held the rank of Corporal in the AAS
structure. Anyone not holding an
apprentice rank was referred to as A/T, meaning Apprentice Tradesman. The
Corporal was to be our guide and mentor for the next six months. One of his
first warnings was that smoking was forbidden until the age of sixteen and
then only with the written permission of one or both parents. Fortunately for
me, at that time I was a non‑smoker. Each recruit had an iron bedstead,
a bedside mat, chair (was it a chair or a bedside locker?) and six-foot
clothing locker. On each bed was a mattress and bedding. Having dropped our
meagre belongings on the bed, most of us stretched out on the bare mattress,
wondering if we were ever going to be fed. The Corporal, a wise old man of
seventeen or so, ambled into the room and surveyed us motley lot then asked: “Anyone here from the South of England?” I was from the South. I was the son of
an old soldier. I knew better than to fall into the trap of answering. Of the
sixteen roommates, several raised their hands. “Good! That means you can easily learn how to make a bed. I will
demonstrate and you will all copy me and make your bed exactly as I show
you”. From his voice we
inferred that he was prejudiced against southerners. As it turned out he was
merely parroting something he had been subjected to in his early days. And so
he proceeded to show us all how an army bed was to be made up for sleeping
in, and how it was to be stripped and boxed every morning. The stripping and
boxing ‑ a form of folding everything up to look neat, was done to
ensure uniformity and prevent persons from going to bed during the day, or so
I thought, and still do. Having successfully made the bed up, the Corporal
instructed everyone to follow suit and practise this newest of marshal arts.
The person who had laid a previous claim to the bed space was grinning at the
thought of having his bed made to perfection by the Corporal. In this he was
to be disappointed because the Corporal simply pulled the bed apart and
stalked off. So for a good half an hour we made and unmade our beds until the
Corporal was reasonably satisfied. The next activity was eating. Lunch
had been kept over for us until after the older hands had eaten. We trooped
after the Corporal a few yards to the dining room. The ritual here was to
present a meal card, printed with little squares ‑ three per day, which
when offered for inspection by the dining room orderly, were scratched or
punched out for each corresponding meal. Thus your attendance at meals was
recorded and, more importantly, you couldn't go round twice, thus depriving
Her Majesty of expensive victuals. We were to discover later that should your
pal be on 'ticket duty’ it was very easy to do a double round, if you were
particularly hungry and had the requisite constitution. Because there would
be no re‑issue of meal cards, it was advised that they be looked after
very carefully. To this end we soon learned that the best protection was to
obtain a packing voucher cover from the side of the wooden boxes that
clothing and other stores were delivered in to the Camp. The voucher cover
was in effect a picture frame‑like piece of tin, open at one end, solid
at the back, into which was slipped an envelope containing the details of the
shipment within the box. This served to carry and protect the information
from the ravages of travel, weather and storage. Likewise it protected our
meal cards from damage otherwise inflicted by constant handling and folding,
etc. There's little to say about the meals,
save that none starved or lost unnecessary weight. We had good meals and bad
ones. As young men we were perpetually hungry anyway, so no matter how often
they could have fed us, we would never have had enough. To supplement your daily
ration there was always a trip to the NAAFI, where for a very modest sum one
could acquire a simple meal like pie and chips. Pay day meant a treat at the
NAAFI, if one was prepared to wait in a very long queue. NAAFI is pronounced
'naffy', not 'narfee', as pointed out by our mentor, the initials mean the
Corporal assured us that it stood for: 'No Ambition And F‑all
Interest'. Amusing, but very unfair, seeing that they provided a world‑wide
service which generally was appreciated and very much missed when the
facility was not available. Having been fed and watered, we
were marched (shambled, is a better description) to the Quartermaster's Store
where we were to receive our uniforms and other items. As to the actual clothing
received, it is a dim memory now aside from the World War I pattern high‑collar
uniforms and three of everything relating to shirts, underwear, socks and the
like. “You gets free,” says the Storeman “cause you has one on, one in the wash and
one in yer locker fer inspections!” Of the ritual that goes with the
issue of equipment I do clearly remember the fact that I and one other had
been given the same army number. Those experienced in these things will know
that one's number is of paramount importance. The NUMBER precedes all else in seniority when it comes to filling in names
and other personal details. Each of us was called by name and given a slip of
paper on which was written the number we had been allocated. We were told to
commit it to memory as it would be required almost every day for the next few
days. And so we stood about mumbling the sequences to ourselves in a
determined effort to get it off pat before we lost the piece of paper.
Clutching the said piece of paper, we filed into the hallowed halls of the QM
Stores where were seated on a long and uncomfortable bench. We sat silently
until the Storeman condescended to attend to our needs. The Apprentice
Corporals maintaining a superior attitude as befits wiser heads. As we sat
and waited we smiled at the humorous notices pinned high above the issues
counter. Of those there I remember only two, which although now known to be
older than the hills, were very new to us. The first read: “We know it doesn't fit but think of the
public expense!” The second
read along the lines that: “Regardless
of rumours to the contrary, there are only two sizes available in the Army. 2
BIG and 2 SMALL!” A civilian working in the Stores
appeared from behind a ceiling-high row of storage shelves and having been
through this saga a hundred times, he wearily and boringly explained the
issue procedure. “I will call out a number from this list,” he tapped a clipboard on the counter‑top,
“you will answer 'Here!' if it
matches the one in your hand. You will come forward and give me your surname
and initials. Then I will issue you your kit. If you know your hat, shoe and
collar sizes, tell me when I ask for it.” And so the waiting began as
one by one numbers were called and kit was issued. There were none who didn't
know their shoe size but almost all had no idea of their hat size. The
ancient Storeman was by no means put out at this. He went through a strange
ritual which involved the recruit clenching his fist and placing it
knuckles-down on a pair of socks between heel and toe. The
heel and toe were then brought together over the back of the hand. Different
size socks were tried until the toe and heel of the sock just touched. The
Storeman then called out a number and invariably the cap and beret produced
by his sidekick, were a perfect fit. I am unable to explain why it worked,
but it surely did. Then came the time when the number
uttered by the Storeman matched that on the paper slip in my hand. As bidden
I stood and began to move forward. Then I noticed that someone else had also
stood and called out: “Here!” at the same time as I. The Storeman
said: “Sit down! Check your number
carefully, two three four eight seven one oh five!” I looked at my
numbered slip. It read 23487105, so I stood up and said: “Here!” So did the other fellow. “Are
you two idiots? One of you can't read” or something to that effect. He demanded we come forward so that
he could look at our slips. That's when we discovered that we had the same
number. The other fellow was alphabetically lower down than I, JONes as
opposed to me, JOHnson. In this particular and military way we were allocated
our proper numbers, I retained the one in my hand. It must be noted that the
Storeman uttered nary a word of apology. The fact that we were both right and
not 'idiots' seemed to matter for nothing. Of course I should have known
better. We were the lowest form of life in the hierarchy of the AAS and even
lower than the lowliest Regular Army recruit. Our kind warranted no apologies
or kind words of any description. Everyone senior to us, and that was the
rest of the The first six weeks were devoted to foot drill and the care and maintenance of clothing and equipment. As is the Army way, no clothing was ever issued in the form in which it must be maintained. Boots were issued with plain leather soles to which we added a specified number of hobnails in a specific pattern. The large steel nails had truncated cones for heads, which added 3 or 4 mm to one's height. The purpose of the hobnails was to eliminate wear and tear on the soles of the boots. The heel of each boot being shod with a miniature horseshoe. We all knew that the hobnails were really there to produce a crunching noise, so beloved of Sergeant Majors, on the gravel of the square and had thus clearly been invented by some past Regimental Sergeant Major, probably from the Guards! The toe and heel of the boots were pimply and regarded as an anathema to the military eye, for we spent hours with a hot spoon and polish eradicating this leather pox. Once the boots were cured of this dreadful disease we spent more hours with polish, water and cotton wool bringing the treated surface to a glossy mirror‑like finish. True, the finished effect was beautiful to behold and endeared one to the hierarchy, to say nothing of the envy of friends and foes alike if one achieved a perfect or almost perfect finish. This art was called 'beezing’. Each piece of kit was marked with
one's number, yet no provision by way of a pre‑determined place for
that number was provided. The position was determined by the Corporal in
charge and, no doubt by trial and error over the years by a myriad of
Corporals before him. The number was inked on with purple dye by means of a
large adjustable rubber stamp like the adjustable date stamps used in an
office. If the ink found its way onto one's fingers, it took days to remove.
Boots were laboriously marked with a set of steel stamps. Webbing, that collection
of canvas belts and straps designed by an octopus for the express purpose of
deviant physical thrills, was also issued in an untreated state. It was
necessary to scrub it almost white and then apply several very light layers
of a tinned paste called 'Blanco Buff 6V’. I have no idea why it was so
called, or even if Buff 60 or 62 existed in the army's inventory. Where
there is webbing, there are brasses. Brass badges, shoulder plates, buckles,
brass tabs and runners. In addition, the tunics (best and working),
greatcoats and caps all had brass buttons of varying sizes. These all had to
be polished to a smooth bright shine. Woe betided anyone whose fingerprints
marred the expected finish. A little help was forthcoming here from a device
known as a button stick (which itself was made of brass and had to be cleaned
and presented for inspection!). The parade belt was made of buckskin leather, some three or four millimetres thick. The buckle was of heavy brass, in two pieces and very large. The belt required whitening in such a manner that no cracks were visible in the finished surface. At the same time the buckle had to be brilliantly polished, no cleaning agent visible in the intricacies of the cast badge which adorned the belt buckle. The latter job meant sacrificing a toothbrush. In all of the above cases of spit and
shine, the military neglected to provide the wherewithal to do the job. This
was a sacrifice made from one's own pocket. Therefore, a certain amount of
expenditure was incurred from the meagre pay of the time. Having established
a circle of friends, it was customary to share in certain commodities, such
as the tin of Brasso, the tin of Glitter (which was a tin of tightly packed
cotton wool soaked in a brass‑cleaning polish) and Blanco. Ironing was an acquired skill. One
iron per barrack room (15‑16 persons to a room), no thermostat, and in
the charge of the room Corporal. Inevitably, when the iron was needed most,
the Corporal was nowhere to be seen. The placement and sharpness of
creases was of paramount importance. Any deviation from the norm was viewed
as akin to unspeakable filth of mind and body. As indeed was being unshaven,
unwashed and having a button undone when in uniform. The latter being the
most heinous of crimes. In the latter case, the standard admonition was: “Are you a practising nudist?” Being the son of a serving soldier
and having spent some years as an Army Cadet, I was already adept at the spit
and polishing skills, having learnt from my father and honed those skills on
my Army Cadet equipment. I was one among a few who were never penalised in
any way for dirty kit at any time during my apprenticeship. I did suffer the
twisted humour of an Apprentice Corporal when he considered that as my
clothes and webbing couldn't be faulted, decided that a sock was improperly
darned and ordered me to throw my boots out of the room window onto the wet
and muddy lawn outside. As an aside, the Corporal when inspecting socks would
pose the question: “Where has the
wool gone what belongs in this 'ere 'ole?” Whatever answer was given always failed to satisfy him. To this
day I have no idea where the wool what
belongs in this 'ere 'ole', goes to! The normal retribution for unsavoury
webbing was for the owner to mark time on the offending webbing while wearing
his best boots. Bear in mind that our boots were studded with heavy‑duty
hobnails. The result of this measure was to add many waking hours to one's
day in reparational labour. Aside from having to press uniform
with razor‑sharp creases, particular attention had to pay to the
brassware that adorned the WWI pattern uniform. The front was fitted with
brass buttons, each held in place by a large split ring. Each shoulder strap
was kept in place by a small brass button with each strap carried brass
lettering that spelled out ARMY
APPRENTICES SCHOOL. This in turn was backed with a ladder‑like brass
strip and a long brass split-pin, to pin the logo to the shoulder strap. Cap
badges were also brass and required a great deal of attention with a toothbrush,
as did all brass buttons if they were to pass muster at inspections. No dried
speck of brass polish was ever to be seen. This included the back of the
badge and any other brassware of which the back could be dealt with. Anyone having been in uniform
knows full well the inordinate time taken to prepare even the meanest of
webbing for a close inspection. However well one applies oneself to the task,
someone, somehow will find fault. Our daily‑wear belt was the standard
web belt with its brass two‑piece buckle, two runners and two buckles
on the back. To thoroughly clean these rear
buckles, we devised the method of sawing through the crosspiece of the
buckle, where it was normally hidden from sight by the loop of canvas which fixed
it to the belt. In this manner we cleaned the whole thing without getting
brass polish on the webbing, where it would stain the canvas if one was not
careful, or dirty the blancoed finish. As for the dress belt of buckskin, we
had to whiten this to perfection and yet not have so many layers of whitening
that it cracked the moment it was lifted from the table. The method handed
down over the years was to scrub it clean and apply one or two thin coats to
the front surface and top and bottom edges. This problem was solved by
'slashing' the belt. This meant cutting the stitching of the belt in such a
way that the two halves of the buckle could be completely removed from the
belt. When the brasses and 'slashed' belt were assembled, the belt was held
together only by the runners, which if they moved outward during drill and
marching, would often lead to a belt end unhooking itself, causing the belt
to droop and one or both parts of the buckle and even the belt to fall to the
ground. Many a buckle and the odd belt has been gleefully trodden into the
parade square by a platoon of young soldiers whose sudden enthusiasm for
crashing their boots resoundingly into the square, came as a surprise to the
squad NCO. We learnt that IE meant 'Interior
Economy', where we had to scrape the polish off of the pine‑board
floors with knives and old razor blades and then re‑polish them. The
floor was made up of three sections, all three running the length of the
barrack room. The centre section comprised narrow well finished floorboards
and were trodden on with care. The outer sections comprised rougher planed
pine boards which were stained black with Zebo Grate Polish, then floor
polish, and then buffed to a deep glow. The buffing was achieved with a
rectangular block of heavy steel fixed to a swivel handle. The underside of
the steel block was fitted with a short-haired stiff-bristled brush. With
this device we polished the floor, an activity called 'bumping the floor'.
The bumper was pushed forward and dragged backwards over the floor until the
required sheen was obtained. We did this by having a lighter person stand on
the bumper's head and two others pull it about. When the hardest part was
done, the person on 'duty bumper' would stoop down and grip the handle toward
the lower end so that the handle passed up his side and under the arms close
to the arm‑pit. In this manner he swung the bumper from side to side
and induced a better shine, then the normal push‑pull exercise followed
by a piece of filched blanket to get a really good shine. This was very
labour intensive, but it did produce the best results. We also learnt to develop a sharpness
of the eye that could detect microscopic particles of dust on radiators,
window sills and even the beams above our heads (there being no ceilings in
the barrack rooms); to clean windows with spit and old newspapers (to this
day probably the best method). We learnt that to be really smart and well
turned out in all respects was to be, in AAS terminology, 'grovel', that the
little circles made by cloth and cotton wool when beezing was called, not
unnaturally, 'beezing rings'. Therefore it was with great delight that the
room Corporal always sent at least one new apprentice to the NAAFI with
strict instructions to get a tin of 'size One beezing rings'. We honed our time-and-motion skills so
that we could lay a‑bed until the very last moment and yet be on parade
neat as a pin at the desired time. This skill will ever elude the ordinary civilian.
Unfortunately there were among us two or three whose ability to acquire these
new skills was somehow impaired. They were mostly academically fit, for even
the 'Borstal Boys' had to pass the entrance exam and physical. Nevertheless,
I recall one lad who never mastered the art of beezing or looking smart. He
suffered untold agonies of rebuke from all and sundry because one man's
idleness, lack of ability or simple ineptitude, let down the whole room. The
youngster just mentioned was entirely uncoordinated and forever late, never
properly dressed when it mattered and whose time-management was off key all
of the time we knew him. In the end we helped get him and his gear ready for
important parades but were wise enough to let him be at other times, so that
he was punished by having to do the menial tasks, like cleaning the toilet
bowls - that we didn't particularly like. Yes. I know! Not very nice, was it?
Yet expediency ruled the day. The physically weak and essentially
shy youngsters, of which I was one, were bullied by others who generally
speaking used this method to hide (or compensate for) their academic or
sporting inability. It seemed to me, that to be really good at anything posed
a threat to someone in the group, in the Company or the School. As 'new boys'
we were fair game for anyone senior to us. We were forced to press uniforms,
bull boots and undertake other tasks under threat of a beating. By which I do
not mean schoolboy whacking with a stick but a beating with fists and not
from just the person wanting the task done, but from his pals as well. We
were often raided just after lights‑out. Senior intakes took great
delight in the game of rushing into the room and turning the beds over,
waiting until the room had righted itself and doing it again an hour later.
At one time, during Two Division I think, we had old fashioned short plywood
clothing lockers and telescoping beds. The beds were dangerous. They were two‑part
frames, the foot end being able to telescope into the head end, thereby halving
their length. The mattress for this bed comprises three equal pieces called
biscuits. If the bed was tipped up, the bottom half slammed home into the top
half and forced the occupant into a tight bundle, the sheet and blanket mixed
together with the disarrayed biscuits caused a log‑jam, which could be
quite painful and constricting. I awoke after one such raid to find myself
clinging to the section that the bottom half should have slid into. Had it
done so it would no doubt have amputated my fingers. Later the games became more
dangerous, such as being blindfolded and hanged. This entailed standing one
on a bedside locker and passing a rope around the neck and over the beam. The
victim was blindfolded and asked for any requests. This was done in a bullying
and frightening manner. Unseen was the piece of cotton tied to the rope and
to the beam. When the bedside locker was kicked from under one, the resultant
puddle of fright and wet clothing was another cause for hilarity and story
spreading through the AAS. My particular event was to push a shoe polish tin
lid with my nose, along the length of a senior intake's room whilst they all
took turns at seeing who could throw a dart closest to the tin. I shudder to
think of the stupidity and danger this 'sport' engendered. Certain persons, who cannot be named as I have unfortunately
forgotten them, made the rounds of Junior rooms throughout the Camp a day or
two before pay day (generally on a Tuesday or Wednesday) demanding money with
menaces. We were forced to give up saved sweets and if permitted to smoke,
our cigarettes and our few pennies left over from pay day. Any complaints
were unpleasantly dealt with. These men, for by that time they were men,
collected a lot of cash to provide themselves with cigarettes and beer.
Although Apprentices were officially prohibited from entering public houses,
this did not stop those determined to drink. At a certain stage in our time at
the AAS we were permitted to wear civvies, called Mufti, from Two Division up
to and including Five Division. In the last term, that is to say when in Six
Division, approved civilian clothes were permitted. In those early days it
seemed to us that more than a few Senior Division found it necessary to add
their standing in the AAS and to their masculinity, to be seen as
deliberately flouting the regulations. Sure, we all bent the rules somewhere
along the line, but there is a line to be drawn. I managed to avoid much
of the confrontation and bullying that took place in the early days of training.
Generally speaking we were well guarded by the School system which gave extra
care to First Division intake. Once we were assigned to Companies after the
basic period of six months, much less visible protection was available. I
think some must have hated almost every waking minute during their
apprenticeship. I was one of those unfortunate types that attracted the
attention of bullies and mean-spirited people. It was difficult at times, but
one learned to cope with it, ignore it and carry on. Somewhere in my psyche I
have the scars. But back to the basic training period, which was six weeks
long and full of repeated foot drill. This and other tasks kept us fully
occupied from dawn to dusk, taking their toll in terms of fatigue, as we fell
asleep as soon as our heads hit our pillows. The initial training phase, which came
as no surprise or difficulty to me, was completed without having once been
bawled out or corrected for drill, dress or bearing. That alone was enough to
get me noticed, not by the drill Staff but by certain fellow pupils who
thought it wrong that this skinny, short (5ft 4in) gawky underweight (1241bs)
toad, should be better at this new game than they were. In fact anyone who
had been an Army Cadet fared well, as can be expected, as we had the
advantage of experience at foot and weapon drill. Having chosen the trade of Armourer,
the authorities were not about to let me loose among weapons until certain
basic engineering skills were learned. This involved much filing of raw
pieces of metal into what were at best useless end products. However, a
little thought could determine that the end product if diligently done, would
teach us some essential hand fitting skills. For example, the filing up of a
simple rectangular plate was to teach us the use of various files and the
engineering tri‑square. The finishing of a cube comprising four filed‑flat
sides, one scraped and one hacksawn surface was to impart the skills required
to file, scrape and hacksaw. Naturally none of us ever achieved perfection or
even came remotely close in those early days. And so from August 1956 until June
1959, I was at AAS Arborfield, learning the theory and practise of becoming
an Armourer. At the beginning there were 23 aspiring Armourers and by the
time I passed out as an Armourer 3rd Class, there were nine of us
left. The remainder had been discharged as incompatible with the trade or
Army life, or relegated to repeat a particular term's work, changed trade or
simply had their parents purchase their discharge. As for me, despite the
threat that I was unlikely to make the grade, I finished an overall third in
my class. I must admit that I took to the trade like a duck to water. I will
admit struggling with the academic side of things. There were good times and bad
times throughout the term of the apprenticeship. We weren't paid a lot of
money, but then no one in Government Service ever is. To me it was money I'd
never had. We were only permitted to draw so much a week. The upper limit was
determined by the Division which you were in, so that when I was in 1
Division I got 3/6d from the 31/6d wage. Some being tax, some being an
‘allotment' to parents and some to a Post Office Savings account. The last
two were encouraged to the point of being an order. Of the remaining, you
drew your 3/6d and the rest stayed in 'credits' and were paid out in full
when one went on leave. This meant that there was a pocketful of money
available at these times. This method of forced saving had
its downside. There were loan sharks in the AAS who charged anything up to
50% per week for a loan. It has been known for some poor sod to pay all his
leave pay over to the loan shark. Repayment was heavily enforced by bully
boys. However, over a period of time we learnt to blend in with the
prevailing culture at the AAS. Anyone who lived outside the 'code' was given
the silent treatment or beaten up or both. In those days we were issued with a
minimum of three of everything, meaning pairs of socks, underwear, shirts,
etc. This meant that on any given day there was one set in the locker, one
set at the laundry and one set on your body. When I think about it I could
shudder. Today we are used to changing every day. In those days we didn't
because you were only allowed to send so many articles into the laundry. I
think it was ten items. If you wanted to submit extra underwear, then you
sacrificed something else. Ten items was the inviolable rule. Most of us had nothing more than the
clothes issued to us. We were not permitted to wear civilian clothing for the
first six months and thereafter only Mufti, comprising grey flannel trousers
with a minimum width of the trouser bottoms of 18 inches and with turn‑ups.
A navy blue blazer with the AAS pocket badge, black shoes and 'sober' socks.
All this was zealously inspected by the regular soldier guards assigned to
the Camp. If the socks were considered too gaudy, one was sent back to change
them. The trouser bottoms were often measured to make sure that they were of
the proper size. Anything smaller and you were considered of an anti‑social
persuasion, akin to being a teddy‑boy or tearaway with no respect for
authority. When we were assigned to Companies,
following the necessary Passing Out Parade after basic training and the
initial six months in One Division, I was assigned to ‘B’ Company where I
remained for the rest of my apprenticeship. Our CSM was Sergeant Major
Dunning (Devon & Dorset Regiment), whom we referred to as 'Daddy
Dunning'. Daddy wasn't given to the normal run of bad language that we were
subjected to on a daily basis. This was because, as far as we could
ascertain, Daddy had come to us from a stint at Sandhurst, where of course it
was not on to use bad language to the young gentlemen.
At a function in Two or Three Division (possibly Xmas Lunch) Regularly throughout the term we were
given progress tests, the results of which were posted on a special board
situated next to the Chief Instructor's office door, so that individual
progress could be seen. I'm pleased to say that it was a rare time when I
didn't figure in the first half dozen and then often in the first four. This
was due to a genuine interest in the subject more than academic ability.
After all, it was a memory feat, and yet that same memory so often let me
down in maths and other subjects. It paid off, because in 1990 I was
appointed South Africa's theory examiner for Gunsmiths. We progressed through rifles, pistols,
submachine guns, machine guns, mortars and so on. At the time of my
apprenticeship we were still taking lessons in the old .38m No2 Enfield
revolver, the .303-in No l and No 4 rifles, the Vickers machine gun, the Bren
light machine gun and the Sten submachine gun. The mortars were 2-inch and
3-inch models. All very well, one would think, but the problem was that the
Army was changing over to newer weapons of which we saw none to speak of.
Still the repair skills didn't go to waste as some units remained with older
equipment for some time. Meanwhile, we were still working our way through the
old and tried syllabus. I cannot remember with any accuracy
all of the small-arms Instructors involved in my training at Arborfield. The
Officer in charge of the Armourers’ Workshop was a Major Viney, something of
a champion pistol shot. Mr Morris (Jr) was the Senior Instructor and his elder
brother Mr Morris (Sr) taught us all about the Lee Enfield rifles. A Mr Riley
had the machine gun section and apart from Sergeant John Downes, I can
remember no others. Sergeant Downes figured later in my career as my boss. At
the time of my apprenticeship he was in charge of the support weapons section
and took us through the Mobat recoilless rifle, mortars, the Vickers tripod
and other items I cannot recall. John Downes became a firm friend in later
years. He is retired now and living in Canberra, Australia. One of the small pleasures during my
apprenticeship was the morning tea break at 1000 hours. I still enjoy the
same break at the same time seven thousand miles away, in a different
country, in a different uniform. During summer months it was always tea, in
the winter it was cocoa, which we fetched in a large urn, picked up at the
Cookhouse and hauled back on a four‑wheeled trolley. This was a duty
that nobody tried to wriggle out of. The reason for this was that there was
invariably some uneaten fried bread left over from breakfast. The fact of gaining good marks in
one's chosen trade could lead to the unjustifiable charge of ‘juicing'. This
term derived from 'sucking up to teacher'. So, as can be seen, the culture of
the times deemed it unmanly to be good at anything other than sports. I
suppose this stems from the fact that most there were not of the highest
academic standards in school and all from working class backgrounds where
academic ability was considered as suspect, not quite respectable in a
working class family. Of course, there were Apprentices of
good education and ability. One could not, for example, hope to master the
requirements of an Instrument Mechanic without some mathematical skills or the
syllabus of the Radar Mechanics or Electronic Control Equipment Mechanics
(ECCE Mechs, to us) as early electro‑mechanical computer personnel were
called, as they were trained to service and repair machinery such as the
artillery predictors. Trades were grouped according to the
degree of academic ability required, whether mechanical, electro‑mechanical
or purely mathematical for electronic work. Thus the top trades were ‘X’
trades, followed by ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’. The pay scales (once qualified) were
thus different. An Armourer was an ‘A’ trade and so at the very least I was
considered potentially capable of mastering the necessary skills. As it
turned out, I did. Try as I might, I couldn't always
divorce myself from the undercurrent of bullying and victimisation that was
prevalent. I understood then as now, that at that kind of institution such
things could never be entirely eradicated. At sometime during the three years
of apprenticeship, every boy would be subjected to some form of bullying or
intimidation. We accepted it as the norm and it readied us for life in the
Regular Army, as men. My sporting life was of no great note.
Having taken a dislike to contact sports during my boarding school days, I
opted for solitary sports like cross‑country running. Naturally there
were times when one was detailed off to participate in Company activities. In
these events I showed my incompetence at football, rugby and cricket.
Although I liked all of the games as a spectator, I was certainly not cut out
to be a player. Running as an activity, meant that I
set my own pace and had time to think as I padded along. I got fairly
proficient and ran as a team member for ‘B’ Company. The activity in which I
excelled the most was shooting. I held my own with the best. Indoor .22-in
target shooting was my forté. I shot for the Company and in postal shoots for the School
against AAS Chepstow and AAS Harrogate. We were allowed out of the camp at
weekends, though there was a curfew for all. The more senior the later the
curfew. Time away from Camp was valuable. Mostly it began after lunch on a
Saturday as most Saturday mornings were taken up with one parade or another.
To leave Camp one had to conform to the dress code mentioned. Some
went to Reading, a relatively large town, but a bit dearer in bus fares. It
was cheaper to go to Wokingham, about four miles away. There were dance halls
and a cinema. As I was no dancer, a good scoff at a reasonable cafe, followed
by a browse around a bookshop or two and then 'pictures', followed in turn by
some window-shopping and girl spotting, was the general routine. Wokingham left no particular lasting
impressions. Reading will always be associated with Ma Beasley's, a small
quiet cafe near the centre of town. It was almost like a converted front
room, and probably was, but the food was good and plentiful. For 2/6d we got
two fried eggs, chips, beans, sausages, a cup of tea and two slices of
buttered bread. After the hard fare of the cookhouse, this home cooking was
wonderful and as I write I can taste it again. At some time or other I was talked
into joining the Arborfield Youth Club. At a small hall in the village there
was a weekly dance where we could play our favourite records without adults complaining
of the noise. There we met several of the village girls and made friends with
one or two non‑Apprentices. On the whole we were well behaved and the
group of us were together over a two‑year period or so. Some paired off
but none were of a permanent nature. Leave was a subject close to the heart
of all of us. So I believed, until I heard tales of orphans who had nothing
much to look forward to in this respect. Nevertheless, great excitement could
be felt as the term breaks came closer. We all estimated our pay out from
credits and made many verbal plans on how best to spend it. Clothes were an
important thing to us all, probably because of the restrictions to Mufti. When the day came to be paid, usually
the day before proceeding on leave, we were all warned to guard our cash
carefully. Despite this someone sooner or later got robbed of all or most of
his money. The 'debt collectors' would be round that evening, asking or
demanding their money. To see colleagues near to tears as they were relieved
of their cash was not a pleasant sight. We were philosophical about this. We
didn't borrow from the sharks, but rather amongst ourselves so we did not
have to pay the exorbitant interest rates, or promise to repay at leave‑time.
Our attitude was that if you were stupid enough to play their game, then you
must be prepared to take the consequences. Having to travel in uniform meant that
once we were home, we put it away until the end of leave. I recall the day
before the end of some leave when in Two or Three Division, I hauled out my
uniform to press it for the return to Arborfield. We were living at the time
with my grandmother, whose house was gas lit. As I normally used an electric
iron, my expertise with the gas iron was limited and I burnt the sleeve of my
uniform jacket. Panic set in, what was I to do? I couldn't travel with a
burnt sleeve. Even worse, I would be for it once back at Camp. I didn't give
a thought to the fact that I might have received a sympathetic hearing from
the CSM or the QM, etc. I simply panicked. Fortunately, my mother's sister
was a seamstress and to hand was my father's uniforms and my uncle's, he
being a WO in the TA, at the time. A shade check revealed that one of Uncle
George's battle dress blouses was a very close match in shade. So using her
magic, my aunt Bet removed the two sleeves and made me a new one from the
sleeve of George's battle dress blouse. When finished, there was a slightly
noticeable difference in the shade. For the next two years, no one ever
remarked on it. Leave was always enjoyed, but
returning to Camp was not. Although it was easy to slip back into the
routine, a few days at home always brought back the realities of the rough
and often crude conditions in which we lived when in barracks. January 1959 saw the start of
56B's final term as Apprentices. In this period I turned eighteen and was put
onto Regular Army pay. I had best explain. There were special rates of pay
for 'boy soldiers' which were applicable to us. However, on reaching the age
of 17˝ or 18 (I forget which), you were put on Regular Army pay. Despite
the pay scale a member was on, he was only allowed to draw a certain amount
per week as explained earlier. Naturally it meant that one’s credits were
quite high come leave time. When July 1959 came round I had passed
the Class 3 Armourers practical test and passed the theory to Class 2. Not
that it helped any, because some time later, in Duisburg, Germany, I had to
sit the whole of the Class 2 test anyway, both theory and practical. Having successfully passed out of the Army Apprentices School, the first Regular Army unit we went to was the REME Depot just up the road. The Depot was the holding place for us until we were assigned a Workshop. We kept our figurative fingers crossed in the hope of a plum posting like Singapore, Hong Kong, Kenya, etc. We all knew that the chances were slim, but we hoped. In the end most of us were posted to the British Army of the Rhine. But that's another story.....
... and at the end in the South
African Navy Gerald Francis (John) Johnson, MMM (Military, Merit Medal) was born
on 6 May 1941 at Chichester, he joined the AAS Arborfield as an apprentice in
August 1956 leaving as an Armourer in 1959. He reached the rank of Sgt after serving
in various units including a tour in Aden with 24 Inf Wksp. In 1968 he joined
the Zambian Army serving with the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the Zambian
Regiment. He then worked as a Technical Instructor in the Commission for
Technical Education, and Vocational Training 1971 to1973. In
1974 he joined the South African Navy, as a Weapons Mechanic. His last eight
years in the SANDF were in the Directorate of Technology, where despite his
naval uniform he ran the Infantry desk compiling, and writing infantry
related technology articles with regard to worldwide trends in weapons, and
equipment. During this period he was appointed to a national committee
developing a curriculum for Gunsmiths and was eventually appointed (the
first) National Examiner for Gunsmith Theory (N3 Level). The grading system
in South Africa works I to III as opposed to our III – I. A keen shot, he then was the Zambian
Defence Force Champion in 1969 and the South African Navy Champion in 1975. These articles have been extracted from a book he has written for his
children and their heirs. |
