A BRIEF HISTORY OF LIFE IN REME

A Craftsman’s Story 1948 to I953

 Contributed by: Phil KEMPSTER

Chapter Five

Tuxford Camp Nottinghamshire 1949

The REME Training Battalion camp at Tuxford was not unlike the camp at Blandford where I had done my Basic Training, it was just outside the village, up a long steep hill and I was to trudge up that many times during the next six weeks. We were billeted in groups of wooden huts called Spiders, these were connected to each other by corridors in the shape of a spider hence the name given to them. This course was absolute hell from start to finish with lots of square bashing and weapon training, most of us had already done all this before at Blandford and Arborfield, then things got really serious.

Combat training on the assault course, climbing over barriers covered with netting, swinging like bloody monkeys on ropes across muddy ditches and, something I hated most of all, crawling along a maze of earth covered shallow trenches dressed in Denims with your packs and ammunition pouches on and your rifle in front of you, crawling along using your elbows and feet to push yourself forward and trying to keep your rifle clean, not easy I can tell you. I remember once I took a wrong turn and finished up at a dead end, there was no room to turn round and I started to panic so I banged as hard as I could on the corrugated tin that covered the top of the trench and shouted for help. There was some noise from above and the next thing I knew I was being dragged out by my feet and up through an escape hatch and told by the Drill Sergeant to get a bloody grip of myself and go back to the start and do it again. I managed it the second time without getting lost, it was a frightening experience and I don’t think I would have been much good as an infantryman. Another exercise we had to endure was being taken by road to an area in Sherwood Forest for overnight manoeuvres, we had to take our waterproof capes as well as all our other kit and were issued with 50 rounds of blank ammunition. It was pouring with rain as they marched us deep into the forest to a clearing, we then had to make our capes into a bivouac and our instructors then told us what was going to happen during the exercise. We were to defend the clearing from attacking enemy forces and send out reconnoitre patrols to warn us of any imminent attacks so that we could prepare ourselves to engage the enemy with rifle fire using our blank ammo, and to make things more realistic, a warning would be sounded and our instructors would fire live gunfire over our heads, this was to make us keep our heads down and it certainly did that. We were all thinking what the hell is going on? They must be expecting WW 3 to start or something. Most of us would find out the reason for this training quite soon during our service careers, I certainly did. It was to be a troubled world over the next few years with conflicts breaking out all over the place.

The exercise was completed with out any serious injuries, we had used all our blank ammo up playing soldiers and were soon on our way back to camp early next morning to dry out and clean ourselves up before breakfast, then back to the room to clean our kit and rifles. What a mess blank cartridges make of a rifle barrel, it took ages to get them clean enough for inspection and woe betide you if it wasn’t. It was not all doom and gloom during this six weeks, we used to get out to nearby Retford, quite a large town with cinemas and pubs and lots of shops etc. There was also the N.A.A.F.I. on camp that was quite good. One of the lads from Barton, I can not remember his name but I think he lived in Eccles near to 4A/A Workshops, he was an excellent piano player and we had some good old sing songs, he could play any tune you asked for. The course was now over and we were all going back to our units a lot wiser and fitter.

Published: 1^st August 2007

Chapter Six