Early days of 1940

It was January 1940 we were told to form a queue at the Quartermasters Stores and give them our clothes size and we were in turn given our uniforms, if you were lucky they fitted if not you did your best to make them fit, on the whole though they were alright.

Then you marched back to your barracks and your bed which contained four blankets, a mattress and pillow. The blankets you had to fold in a certain way or else.

My barracks contained about forty beds, the windows were always left open, the barracks were called spiders as they all opened out to a square, and they contained the showers and toilets. It was called Boyce Barracks in a village called Crookham and I was with the rest of lads in G Company.

This was to be my home for a month until they were satisfied that I was a fully trained solder in the R.A.M.C. so far my training was how to march in formation and salute on the sacred ground of Boyce Parade Ground. It was under the protection of the Regimental Sergeant Major and his voice could be heard in Aldershot and that was at least 20 miles away.

Thinking back after 60 years I was right at the time in thinking that we were all being trained in the fashion of 1914. We were medical but had no training in handling wounded men either in the classroom or in the field. Luckily I had been in the St Johns Ambulance Brigade as a civilian so that was there to fall back on. But the rest had been given no training. We did have training though in handling and giving of Morphine to wounded soldiers and after 60 years it has remained with me. Thus:

“You must have a spoon — place water from your bottle in the spoon, place the tablet in the water — heat the water with your lighter — get your One C.C. syringe, fill up the syringe with morphine then inject the patient. Note the time on the patients forehead.”

At the time in the classroom having been given that information and thinking it through, I always thought he had a sense of humour in being able to carry out these instructions. Because in the field and the chaos around you all you had time to do was place the tablet under the tongue and write the time on his forehead.

Later on in 1943 on board ship we had used up our allocation of morphine tablets and noticed a Yankee ship in harbour at Cape Town. I went begging to one of their medics for morphine and they gave me a few tablets - ¼gram. You just inject the ¼gram into the patients arm and then noted the time on his forehead — progress.

So back to Boyce and after three weeks we were all given a weekend pass from midday Saturday to midday Sunday, plus a free travelling pass, it felt as though we were children being let out of school. When Sunday midday came we got ready to go back to barracks, I took my laces out of my boots to give my them a thorough clean and then went off to get the train.

When Monday morning came it was our Passing out Parade on the sacred square, the R.S.M. came by our squad and then came the thunder. That man took two paces forward and with our eyes only we tried to fathom out who the culprit was, then I realized it was me! I was being yelled at, that I was improperly dressed, while standing still I tried to figure out what I had missed. Then I was told in army terms that the laces in my boots had been placed wrong, they should have gone across from one eyelet to eyelet, my trouble was it was done criss-cross — civvy style.

I have vivid memories of that parade ground even after 60 years because the R.S.M. made me run round it for nearly an hour and everybody else had gone to dinner.

Ah, happy happy days.

Harold William Richards 7367913 — Cpl.

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