What was Cold War British Army Conscription really like? (433)

0:00Miles:Welcome to Cold War Conversations, the home of real stories of the Cold War. Right now, get up to 15 % off select storage solutions. Put heavy-duty HDX totes to good use, protecting what's important to you. The solid, impact-resistant design prevents cracking, and the clear base and sides make items easy to find even when the totes are stacked. Find select shelving and tote storage up to 15 % off at the Home Depot to organize every room in your home, from your garage to your attic. Visit homedebo.com, how doers get more done. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling?

0:41Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling, just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. It was the end of the Teddy Boy era. It started with mogs and rockers. And there was quiff haircuts and DA haircuts abounded plenty. No effing sergeant majors can tell me what to do. Blah, blah, blah, blah. We all came out all looking absolutely sure.

1:20Even the Teddy Boys, you know, the hard men. They were a bit wary by this time.

1:53Miles:Miles' story, and one of his relatives for putting me in contact with him. Miles shares vivid memories of receiving his call-up papers, the initial medical examination, and the challenges of basic training at Catterick Camp. From the camaraderie formed among recruits to the rigours of physical training and the often humorous anecdotes of army life, this episode offers a unique glimpse into the last days of British conscription. I'm delighted to welcome Mars Cavern to our Cold War conversation What age was it that you received that invitation from Her Majesty the Queen? Well, I was about 17 and a half working at the RoboWorks Solihull in the car factory and I had this brown letter coming through informing me that I had to register for national service.

2:49It was a legal requirement. I could be prosecuted, etc., etc., etc., if I didn't go through with it and register. So I did. I was quite happy to. It was a part of growing up, if you like. And, well, to be honest, I thought they'd forgotten me because it was almost nine months before I actually got the letter of invite to go and have the medical. And then after that, it was a matter of another two or three months before I had the invite to go up to Caterick.

3:28Miles:And what year was this? Yeah, sorry, 1959. Had they told you what unit you were going to serve in at this point? did they tell you it was Army, Navy or Air Force? No, no, we had no idea at all. A lot of it became clear at the medical, which took place in South Yardley, Birmingham area, Small Heath. All three services were represented by a team of medics. It was an old school building. No place to be approved of any description, to be honest with you. It was a series of cubicles, fiberboard walls, not very much room. And you were processed through. I mean, obviously there was several hundred lads there, you know, on the same day.

4:23And we went through round in like a snake fashion, discarding clothing, being disputed quite carefully, closely, prodded, poked. had our ears looked into, looked down our throats. And yes, we had the comic book one, drop them, cough, okay, thank you. That's no joke, that is exactly what happened. You were standing there, naked is the day you were born, your clothes were on a pile, and then they turned you around, you had to bend over and look for a little nodule, shall we say. it was all very amusing, I suppose, in retrospect. But we had no idea which branch of the services we'd be going into.

5:13I personally wanted to go in the Army, which is rather strange because being brought up and being alive during the war and the aftermath of the war and the RAF was a big thing. I always have been keenly interested in aircraft, but I did not want to go in the RAF. I wanted to go in the army. Don't ask me why. It was just me. I wanted to do it. My parents didn't want me to go in at all. That's quite a long story, and I don't know whether you've got time for this.

5:50Miles:Anyway, so... Well, I've got as much time as you want, Miles, to be fair. Why were your parents not keen? Because as you say, this was a legal obligation. You couldn't avoid it. No, well, no, you couldn't. I mean, you could avoid it on medical grounds if you had certification from a doctor stating reasons why, in his view, the candidate should not be considered fit for service. and I did have such a certificate from my doctor. I was quite carefully brought up, I suppose, as a lad, you know, sheltered from the harsh realities of life on the street. And I had a letter from the doctor stating that because I had TB when I was in the formative years, I was nine or ten, something like that, and I'd spend 12 months in a convalescent home as a result, etc., etc.

6:51I should not be considered a likely candidate. And my mother gave me this letter and said, be sure you give this to the doctor when you get there. Yes, mum, I said, dutiful little boy. I didn't because I had no intention of jeopardising my opportunity to join the army. I couldn't have volunteered but I didn't want to. I wanted to do national service as a trial run if you like. So I didn't give the note over. And when I got back home, my mum said, well how did you get on? Did you get your exemption? and I said, no, it says on this bit of paper, so they gave me A1. What about that letter, she said.

7:39I said, oh, I forgot to give it to you. So, you know, I got my own way in the end, anyway. Then it was a matter of waiting, and I had to go back to work in the afternoon, tell the personnel department that I was going to be called up, and they said, OK, we are legally obliged to hold your job open for the two years you're away. Just let us know when you get your call-up papers. So in about four months after all this happened, I got a little letter coming through the post requiring me to report to Cattery Camps in Yorkshire for basic training. I had no idea what regiment, what branch of the army.

8:26We just had to be there. I mean, in those days, it was steam trains. That was quite exciting. And it was quite weird, I suppose. Getting on the train, mum and dad were saying goodbye to me. I had a bag with me clothing and so forth in. And the usual entreat is, be sure to write and let us know how you go on. And all the rest of parental wishes. I mean, hindsight, I'd have done exactly the same for my kids. Anyway, I ended up in Catterick. Got off the truck there with several hundred other people, and we were then forth known as Intake 5907. 59 being the year, the seventh intake of that year. Okay?

9:19So that was my introduction to my life. We were sorted out into various groups and told to get in the back of this Bedford Three Tonner, which we all did, carrying our cases, packs and whatever. And I ended up in Euphrates Lines, Catrick Camp, Yorkshire. Never been to Yorkshire in my life before. It was a wild place. The buildings were largely wooden. Then some of the billets that were, you've perhaps seen the type of things that the air crew used to sleep in, not quite in this hut, but they were brick-built, single glazing. This was round about early, late March, so it was damn cold, let's put it like that.

10:08The wind was whipping across the moors, and we were sorted out into various groups and marched into the billets, or the rooms, the billets. and we were told to take a bed, dump our suitcase on there and get outside with the rest of the group. So we did that, and all looking and feeling fairly shocked. People from all walks of life. It was a right cosmopolitan mixture of people from all over the country. And we were formed into a block and marched off. March called it March, well they called it March, I mean, he was shuffling. And we went to the cookhouse, or the canteen, and we were given a mug of tea and a sandwich.

10:58And then we were told to get outside. And then we were broken up into even smaller groups and to have a lecture on do's and don'ts whilst in Cateric. The army was in charge of you. You did what they said, no questions asked. Yes and no, sir, three brothers, four sir. It came to play. It came to play, believe you and me. I suppose we were naive, you know, ready to believe, or some of us were ready to believe everything we were told. Anyway, we had this lecture and we were enjoined, do not speak to the members of the press, do not discuss sex, religion or politics in the barracks between yourselves, and there's one or two others and we thought yeah, okay, fine, this is alright but this time it was getting up at 6 o 'clock so there was another feed in the canteen and then we were marching into the QM stores where we picked up a mattress if I remember rightly two sheets one pillow and two blankets and that was it and by this time in the billet the regiment for permanent staff.

12:21That is the regiment that was training the trainees, if you want. They did it on a rotational basis. Different regiments came and went. We noticed that the regiment that we were with was 1650 Queen's Royal Lancers, which is a cavalry regiment. A very old one, very well known.

12:46Miles:you mentioned that you were taken into separate groups and in the notes you kindly sent me you mentioned that professional sportsmen were taken to one side yeah that's right yeah i'm sorry i jumped that one yes we were in this block of people and the corporal from the lancers came out and said gentlemen he still calls gentlemen uh do we have any professional footballers hockey players, rugby players, cricket players, swimmers, you know, the usual field sports. If so, please stand forward now. So, to be fair, in any group of people, you're going to get one or two. I think there's a very forum step forward, professional footballers.

13:32No idea who they were. Never saw them again. They were taken to one side and probably inducted into the local regiment that was in training. so that was that so it was, yeah, you begin to get the idea that they were interested not so much in you as a person but in the standing in the army as a regiment that you happen to be in of course we didn't know that then so we had our bedding and we were told to get ourselves into bed and have a good night's sleep gentlemen because tomorrow we're going to start work properly okay so we're all looking around at each we're thinking well what are we doing now so we thought okay we better make a bed now all right perhaps because i've been in hospital for such a long time i knew what a hospital corner bedding bed looked like so i'd put the hospital corners on the bed pillowcase on the pillow, blankets on top of the sheet, and I had a quick wash to clean my teeth and got into bed, hung my clothes up, and eventually I went to sleep.

14:54There was a lot of funny noises during the night. Quite weird, I suppose. So I'd never been in a room with adult people before, if you like, that I didn't know. Anyway, come about 6.30 the following morning, an almighty rattle started at the foot of the billet, where this single-stripe corporal came in, Lance Corporal, with his stick, and he started rattling the ends of the beds, you know, the metal, wakey wakey rise and shine hands off your i won't i won't use that word and on with your socks you can i think you can imagine the word yeah anyway so i mean i i sat in bed and i thought what the devil am i doing here i had to get out of jail free and i didn't use it why anyway it only lasted a few seconds well I'm here because I wanted to be so we get and we all start rushing around and into the washroom for ablutions and cold water, ok fine no attempt at shaving we didn't shave in didn't feel that we needed to shave we got ourselves dressed and lined up, we marched around to the QM stores again, we were given given a set of mess tins, a set of eating irons and a mug.

16:27And then we marched up the cookers. We had our breakfast. We were given half an hour. And we had to get back into the billet, get your kit washed, put away, and you're on your locker. And we had to line up outside and we marched around again to the QM stores. This time it was a serious one because we marched in and we were given three battle dresses that's battle dress and trousers two pairs of boots three pairs of socks we have now you're going to laugh at this one two pairs of drawers, hallelujah two pairs of drawers and vests, wool three shirts what else did we have there, that was it anyway and I thought well why draws hallelujah and then it dawned on me then that they were I don't know whether you remember just after the, well perhaps you wouldn't but there was a something called airtex clothing came out which was shirt and vest well vests and underpants and they were cellular and in the army form they were draws cellular but of course they called them draws hallelujah because they were holy

17:55anyway so and we were all and three pairs of denim overalls we had as I said we had three battle dresses the best battle dress second best and a working best we weren't allowed to wear those yet we were allowed to put our overalls on over your civilian clothing. And then we were marching round to the barbers, camp barbers. By this time, we were in blocks of squads of about 20, 25 members, maybe 30, keep it even. So we became squad number one, number two, number three, et cetera. And we were marching round to the barbers where they whipped us in and we had the regimental haircuts and they charged us sixpence for nothing free.

18:55And, I mean, prior to this, some of the lads, I mean, it was the end of the Teddy Boy era that started with Moggson and Rockus in those days and there was quiff haircuts and DA haircuts abounded plenty. No effing sergeant majors can tell me what to do. blah blah blah blah we all came out all looking absolutely sure and we all looked apart from the obvious physical differences the same slightly scared and bewildered even the teddy boys the hard men who wanted to be they were a bit wary by this time and of course with overalls on you're becoming just a block of people rather than as individuals and i must say that that was the credo of the army we realized it quite quickly the idea of basic training is nothing to get you into a state of fairly good physical fitness but they took you apart as an individual and we're live on match day as doug reaches for a buffalo

20:09Miles:wing. He's got it. Oh, and he's gone for a can of Pepsi too. What a finish. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made$15 bills, but it turns out That's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent.

20:47Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. They stripped you back, right back to bare basics. and then and only then they started building you into a block a wedge a working entity of people that would come over the weeks to rely on each other to help each other in times of trouble you know and laugh and joke and And that thought has never, ever left my mind. It was putting together a cohesive block of people that would do as they were told, as they were trained to do, without any argument. And it was the only thing they could do, to be honest.

21:36It was, yeah, it was life-forming. Anyway.

21:44Miles:thank you for those descriptions they're very vivid that was brilliant so what was your basic training like very physical i was not a particularly physical specimen never had been never much good at running jumping etc being a spectacle wearer i didn't see too well when they got muddied or dirty but anyway we had to do an awful lot of running around. We had to do shinning up ropes, which I did manage to do in the end. We had to go over assault courses, throwing the show over gates, rolling around in the mud and on the sand, walking on, running across planks and so on. But by this time, of course, we were allowed to wear our third best shirts and denim overalls, boots and gaiters.

22:46And we had to do that, and a belt, because we'd had a mist-up there. But we had a kit delivery as well, where you get your, we knew it was a FSMO, full-scale marching order kit, which was belt, gaiters, cross straps, various bits of webbing that you've attached. And, yeah, so a lot of gym work, jumping up and down on the spot, jumping astride, jumping over one side, back over the other side, running 100 metres back, having a rest, then running back again. And then this was, we had a set of PT kit as well, a pair of pumps, two shirts and two pair of shorts. and then once that sort of thing was over about an hour or so we were told to go and have a shower and be back on parade because they were recognised there's parades by this time in five minutes and you had to be dressed properly so we went through showers and you know what it's like when you're trying to get into wet clothes quickly very very difficult and form up outside but we were all in the same boat so what did it matter the next thing we had was the correct way to dress yourself we were shown how to get dressed belts had to go on you could put a belt on upside down and it was wrong it had to be in a certain way your gaiters you had to have your gaiters on the right way up and fastened securely.

24:34The brasses on the belts had to be in certain positions, had to be even. So you looked asymmetrical as a block of people. You're part of the army credo of making you look like the next person to you, really. And then we had a lovely lecture from a corporal who said, right gentlemen, tonight when you've finished all your day's training and you've only just started, you'll have to clean your kit, clean your webbing. Now the webbing was secondhand to say the least. It was a sort of muddy, creamy grey colour. And he said all that old webbing will have to be white, scrubbed white. before you come back on parade in the morning.

25:34And the way you do it, plenty of hot water, a scrubbing brush, just scrub like hell and hang it up to dry overnight. Or every bit of kit, large pack, small pack, all your various bits and pieces. OK, that's the job for tonight. And the next thing we had to do was we'd had our haircuts, we'd done a bit of physical training so that while you're out of breath we take you down to the medics for another medical so we went into the medical medical hut, it was a wooden hut and they said right, take your shirts off overall tops off line up against the wall left shoulders to the wall and lean against the wall so we all did that now they'd face to all turn and face the right way.

26:27So in other words, we were lying against the wall, our right arms were bare, and they were all, you know, facing the same way. And then three medical orderlies came in, two of them bearing Petri dishes. Another one was carrying a Bunsen burner. And on the other hand, he had a series of corks with needles stuck in them. Now we're going to have our first, of our many injections. So he went along, the doctor came in then, and he picked up a cork, passed it through the Bunsen burner flame, dipped it in the solution, then just stabbed it into your shoulder. No finesse, just bang, and it went. And it just went bang, bang, bang, bang, all the way down the line.

27:17And I thought, ooh, that was a bit painful. But that was the easy one. The next one, it was an inoculation. And he went back to the front end of the line chain there, and this time he picked up a cork with about six needle points in, dipped it in the solution, and dab, dab, dab, dab, dab on your shoulder, a bit lower down. That was painful. You could feel yourself pushing yourself into the wall to try and get away, which was why they had you leaning against the wall in the first place. Eh, not daft. so we went through that and then the final one was the one called the TABT injection which was that was a horror, that really was it was a single injection the usual thing, needle in the flame, into the solution into your armory, went a bit deeper this time and after about five minutes your arm started throbbing after about an hour you could barely raise it above your arm so you tried swinging your arm around to get the stuff moving into your shoulder and anyway I mean that was part of what everybody went through it we were all a little bit shocked by the brutality of it but it was all part of it and then we were let back outside and a bit more running around, a bit more jumping around mealtimes came and went then we had a lecture, another lecture about the regiment that we were attached to because we weren't designated into the regiment we learnt a little bit about the 16th Lancers and they hoped that we would all join them anyway but then it was the end of another day and then introduced into parades in the morning first parade the inspection where they lined us all up and Sergeant Kane ran with his swagger stick and he looked us all up and down.

29:25And I think, you know, you're probably thinking, what am I supposed to do with this lot for six weeks? You know, how am I going to get a knock-em-in to show?

29:34Miles:Probably, but that was half the course. Presumably, you're also getting kit inspections as to, you know, how well you're keeping your kit in your locker or... what have you as well. Was that tough for some people to actually get that right? It was tough. Some people had the knack of doing things almost instinctively. I tended to watch and try and emulate people who did it fairly fast, you know, how they got on. And you learn tricks of the trade. Some people didn't know the left hand from the right hand. and some of them never really understood the right side up of a belt or the gaiters or anything like this.

30:21So again, you started to help those people out. The slightly slower ones you helped out. But one of the biggest mysteries in life was the boots. I say we were given two pair, a best pair and a working pair. Now, they were army boots, but there was no studs in them. They were just toe and heel plates at the bottom, no studs. And we learned we were now in the RAC, the Royal Armoured Corps, which is obviously all the armoured regiments. when you're in tank or an armored car or whatever you were in sliding boots on metal plates is not a good idea so we were told that we were privileged to be in the Royal Armored Corps because we wouldn't have to polish the studs on our boots but you would have to burn the I don't know if you're familiar with rough army leather it's all bubbly

31:33Miles:yeah I've seen it on the boots yeah it's not a smooth level no well all those bubbles had to be burnt off and then highly boiled and highly polished till you could see your face in it and that's quite a challenge because to burn it off we were given a piece of metal like a poker with one end flattened into like a spatula and the idea was you put this into the stove in the billet, got it warm and then you just kept smoothing over these bobbles until they became smooth. If you did them too much, it burnt the leather. If you got anywhere near the stitching and it was too hot, the stitches would burn and your boots would fall apart.

32:23So it was quite a challenge. Now for your working boots, it had to be toe caps and the heel caps, the heel plates, you know, the back of the heel for working boots. Yeah. For best boots, because we were in the Royal Armour Corps, it had to be all over. So every single inch of leather had to be burnt smooth. And then you had to keep applying polish, and then you had to rub it around in circles with a duster and a bit of water. Whenever you spit, it didn't really work. and it had to be kiwi polish. Cherry blossom polish didn't work. It had to be kiwi. And to add insult to injury, we had to buy it from the Nafi.

33:20We had to buy dusters from the Nafi to do this. And so it went on. And eventually, we ended up buying emery paper and brasso. Brasso for obvious reasons. And the emery paper was to smooth all the forging marks out of the brass belt fittings and polish to the high degree of finish. It was a mucky old job. It was a mucky old job and you spent hours at it. All this after a day's basic training with lectures and so on.

33:59Miles:I just wanted to ask you about some of the other aspects of the training. what sort of weapons training were you having? That's a difficult one, that, because the first four weeks we weren't allowed anywhere near weapons. And the basic training was a six-week course. And on week four, we had a lecture from an armourer on a Lee-Enfield.303 rifle, which was the standard pattern then. as was used during the war. So, you know, I mean, a lot of the lads were looking, and I was one of them, were looking forward to a bit of weapon training. And we were shown how to strip it down. We were told the various parts of it, the so-called nomenclature to put into army terms, upper sling swivel, lower sling swivel, stock, upper stock, lower stock, like trigger, magazine, safety catch, rear leave sight, front sight, and all those bits and pieces that went with it, and how to load it, how to fire it, well, how to dummy load it.

35:16Well, there were nowhere near bullets at that stage. And we weren't issued with any sort of weaponry at all. the only weaponry we were given was we had to do a guard duty one night where we had to patrol round the tank park where the tanks were and to do that we were given a pick-health a torch and a whistle and we had to go round at night for two hours just patrolling round armed to the teeth with a pickerel and a torch. Yeah, okay. Comic cut stuff, but never mind. It worked. That was the only weapons we had. Oh, and we saw the bayonets as well, which was not a blade. It was just a spike, a long spike.

36:11No cutting edge at all. It was about nine inches long, something like that. Good for knocking holes in tins of bully beef and so on. stab him he had a good for him