When I arrived in Singapore, at GHQ Far East Land Forces, early in 1956 I was taken to Tyersall Camp and directed to report to the Regimental Office, facing on to the main barrack square. There were perhaps half a dozen people in there, ruled over by the Chief Clerk, who was a sergeant. He had it in mind to keep me as one of his team, but he lost out to an officer, Captain Collins, who was OC (Officer Commanding) Operating Squadron – the business end of GHQ Signal Regiment. Op Squadron worked the Signal Centre across at Tanglin Garrison, a mile or so away from Regimental HQ at Tyersall. The OC heard that a Clerk had arrived and he came across in his Ford Consul to capture me and take me back.
The Signal Centre was a busy place, handling Army communications across the whole of the Far East. There were Wireless Operators, Telephone Operators, Teleprinter Operators, technicians of various sorts, and, of course the mysterious Cypher Operators, specially trained to use code machines. They were sworn to secrecy, and all were automatically promoted to be full two-stripe corporals, with a good chance of making sergeant. This was presumably because it made them less likely to be irresponsible and talk about their work in pubs, in front of suspicious people with Russian accents and snow on their boots.
I worked in a little office – the Squadron Office. When Captain Collins took me in, he handed me over to Corporal Ron Toft, who ran the office. Ron and I shared the office with the SSM – the Squadron Sergeant-Major. (What would be a “Company” in the most of the Army is a “Squadron” in the Signals.) Captain Collins was in an inner sanctum on his own.
In just the twenty or so months I was there I saw various corporals, SSMs and Officers come and go. Some were terrific people, others were miserable bastards. My all time favourite, though, was Squadron Sergeant-Major Norman S. Shilson. A gem of a man who had joined up as a boy soldier at fourteen, rising to Warrant Officer Class 2, Norman Shilson was funny, kind, firm and wise in a way that went way beyond the stereotype of the senior non-commissioned officer. I never heard him shout, for example, and he had an engaging way of standing up from his desk, picking up his silver topped walking stick and smoothing his moustache with the back of his hand. As he straightend up he was visibly putting on the persona of the traditional Sergeant-Major before he walked out to catch some unfortunate Signalman going by with un-gleaming boots.
(“Sergeant-Major” is, in military terms, not a rank but an appointment. Norman Shilson’s rank was WO2 --Warrant Officer Class 2 -- next to the top for those who weren’t commissioned officers. His appointment was to be Squadron Sergeant Major (SSM) of Operating Squadron, responsible for discipline and general good order.)
Sergeant-Major Shilson was a keen letter writer, and had pen friends all over the world, people of all walks of life. Every day there was mail for him, and he was always delighted.
“Mail for the Sarn’t-Major? Good-oh!”
He had a collection of quaint sayings, some with words and phrases borrowed from India and the Middle
East. Most are now forgotten, but I do remember, though, what he always said at the end of the day when it was time for us all to leave and lock up.
“Come on then,” he would say, “Pick up your monkeys and parrots, and fall in facing the boats.”
It’s a magnificent phrase and I use it often, in his memory, and to the bemusement of anyone who hears it. It’s redolent with the experience of troopships, India, soldiers returning home with smuggled pets, and the long years of Empire.
(Richard Holmes, in “Sahib”, his wonderful account of the British soldier in India, tells us that monkeys and parrots were popular pets, and that “Men spent long hot days trying to teach birds ‘a soldier’s vocabulary’…”)
Rest in Peace Norman Shilson, for we really won’t see people like you again.
Friday, 29 October 2010
Friday, 11 June 2010
Bugs 2. Flaming vengeance.
Bugs 2
The big insect problem for us in Singapore though, wasn’t ants, or beetles, or even the cockroaches, which sometimes hid in our clothes. We didn’t even really have mosquitoes to any significant degree – the Army had carried out a highly effective anti-malaria programme draining stagnant water and liberally using DDT (later to be banned worldwide for its effects on bird life) So although we had mosquito nets, they weren’t really necessary and few used them.
No, the big problem was man’s eternal companion the common bed bug. These terrible minibeasts were in their element – a warm climate, sweaty beds and lots and lots of human flesh. You knew you’d got them when you felt one crawl up your back in the middle of the night. It would perhaps continue across your pillow, and if you squashed it with your thumb you would produce a little splash of your own blood – which made you indignant at the idea of being invaded. We were plagued by them. You’d go for ages without noticing them and then, suddenly, one morning you’d wake up covered in little specks of blood where the little devils had been feasting on you in the night.
The Army knew there was a problem. In fact they tried to solve it by withdrawing our coir-stuffed mattresses, giving us posh Dunlopillo ones instead, presumably believing that the bugs wouldn’t nest in them.
They were missing the point, though. Bugs don’t necessarily need mattresses to live in. They will nest anywhere within reach of humans – in hollow walls, under peeling wallpaper. But when we really noticed them was when they set up home in the angles of our metal bed frames which they did from time to time. They could appear quite suddenly. You’d see a chap wake up in the night and move his mattress on to the table in the middle of the barrack room, having been driven off his bed by the arrival of the little red invaders.
The quartermaster gave us insect powder – presumably the then ubiquitous DDT. The best solution, though, was to burn your bed – not the mattress, but the iron bit.
This was quite a ritual, usually carried out at the weekend. You went to the NAAFI and bought a can or two of lighter fuel. Then you took your mattress off your bed and carried the iron bed frame on to the grass. Next you poured fuel over the iron frame and set it alight. The bugs perished in a satisfying series of cracks and pops. A riskier but more satisfying alternative was to squirt a stream of lighter fuel from the nozzle on the can and then light it, so you had a sort of mini flame thrower to work with. The only trouble was, if it lit back into the container itself you were likely to share the crackly fate of the bugs.
The other big insects we occasionally encountered were the cicadas – burly members of the grasshopper family, who sawed away producing music all night in the grass. Any film about the tropics has them in the background. The only time I saw one at close quarters though, was one night when I was on guard. I was lying on a bed in the guardroom, when I turned my head and there, about two inches away, looking me straight in the eye, was this giant thing a bit like one of those crayfish they put on the top of the paella in Spanish restaurants.
They’re harmless, of course, but that didn’t stop me from taking off and flying across the guardroom. I swear I actually levitated and travelled twenty feet still in a lying position.
All of this was in my mind when we returned to Singapore in 2000. Of course, I didn’t expect that we’d have to burn our bed on the lawns of the Shangri La Hotel. (“Two cans of lighter fuel, waiter, as soon as you like.”) But I did think we’d be plagued by night time flyers as we walked around.
In fact I don’t recall seeing many insects at all. All I can think is that the whole island has been so comprehensively zapped with chemicals that there’s nothing left. It was Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” brought to life.
The big insect problem for us in Singapore though, wasn’t ants, or beetles, or even the cockroaches, which sometimes hid in our clothes. We didn’t even really have mosquitoes to any significant degree – the Army had carried out a highly effective anti-malaria programme draining stagnant water and liberally using DDT (later to be banned worldwide for its effects on bird life) So although we had mosquito nets, they weren’t really necessary and few used them.
No, the big problem was man’s eternal companion the common bed bug. These terrible minibeasts were in their element – a warm climate, sweaty beds and lots and lots of human flesh. You knew you’d got them when you felt one crawl up your back in the middle of the night. It would perhaps continue across your pillow, and if you squashed it with your thumb you would produce a little splash of your own blood – which made you indignant at the idea of being invaded. We were plagued by them. You’d go for ages without noticing them and then, suddenly, one morning you’d wake up covered in little specks of blood where the little devils had been feasting on you in the night.
The Army knew there was a problem. In fact they tried to solve it by withdrawing our coir-stuffed mattresses, giving us posh Dunlopillo ones instead, presumably believing that the bugs wouldn’t nest in them.
They were missing the point, though. Bugs don’t necessarily need mattresses to live in. They will nest anywhere within reach of humans – in hollow walls, under peeling wallpaper. But when we really noticed them was when they set up home in the angles of our metal bed frames which they did from time to time. They could appear quite suddenly. You’d see a chap wake up in the night and move his mattress on to the table in the middle of the barrack room, having been driven off his bed by the arrival of the little red invaders.
The quartermaster gave us insect powder – presumably the then ubiquitous DDT. The best solution, though, was to burn your bed – not the mattress, but the iron bit.
This was quite a ritual, usually carried out at the weekend. You went to the NAAFI and bought a can or two of lighter fuel. Then you took your mattress off your bed and carried the iron bed frame on to the grass. Next you poured fuel over the iron frame and set it alight. The bugs perished in a satisfying series of cracks and pops. A riskier but more satisfying alternative was to squirt a stream of lighter fuel from the nozzle on the can and then light it, so you had a sort of mini flame thrower to work with. The only trouble was, if it lit back into the container itself you were likely to share the crackly fate of the bugs.
The other big insects we occasionally encountered were the cicadas – burly members of the grasshopper family, who sawed away producing music all night in the grass. Any film about the tropics has them in the background. The only time I saw one at close quarters though, was one night when I was on guard. I was lying on a bed in the guardroom, when I turned my head and there, about two inches away, looking me straight in the eye, was this giant thing a bit like one of those crayfish they put on the top of the paella in Spanish restaurants.
They’re harmless, of course, but that didn’t stop me from taking off and flying across the guardroom. I swear I actually levitated and travelled twenty feet still in a lying position.
All of this was in my mind when we returned to Singapore in 2000. Of course, I didn’t expect that we’d have to burn our bed on the lawns of the Shangri La Hotel. (“Two cans of lighter fuel, waiter, as soon as you like.”) But I did think we’d be plagued by night time flyers as we walked around.
In fact I don’t recall seeing many insects at all. All I can think is that the whole island has been so comprehensively zapped with chemicals that there’s nothing left. It was Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” brought to life.
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Bugs 1.
Why Bugs 1? Because there’ll be Bugs 2 in due course. Lots of bugs in the tropics remember.
In Singapore, the heat and humidity bred insects like – well, like flies I suppose. Not that flies themselves were the main problem. In that we were lucky, compared with our comrades who served in places like Aden and Egypt, where the flies were organised into brigades, with officers and NCOs, and were practically running the country.
That, though, left several species of flying annoyances. Because we were short on entomological knowledge we called them one of two things. They were either “weirdies” or “flying kitbags.”
Weirdies were, well, weird. And some of them could nip you. Flying kitbags were huge flying beetles – so big they seemed to be defying the laws of physics, managing to keep aloft with what looked like impossible wingloadings. They were peaceful things, content to lumber around under the eaves of the huts where, presumably they had nests. Maybe they weren’t harmless at all. Maybe they had time expired National Servicemen cocooned in their nests, hoping for death like those missing crewmen in “Alien”
There were ants, too. Big, and fierce and red, like Russian soldiers. They made it impossible to sit on the grass outside the barrack rooms at Tyersall. In fact it wasn’t advisable even to stand still for any length of time. You got the feeling they could strip a horse and rider to skeletal form in short order, like the African jobs I once read about in a horror story.
They were clever devils, too. I once saw them do something that I’ve kept it to myself, because I didn’t think anyone would believe me. So do I tell you now? I only hope that among the half dozen or so people who get to read this there’ll be someone with enough ant-based knowledge to confirm that I really could have seen it.
I was in the shower. The dividing walls between the shower stalls were of brick faced with plaster, and they were about six feet high, finishing well short of the ceiling. One afternoon, I was showering blissfully, enjoying the feeling of the day’s sweat rolling away, when I became aware of movement on the wall beside me. Stepping hurriedly out, I got my glasses from the washbasin shelf where I’d left them and went back to look.
There, on the dividing wall of the shower I’d just left was a working party -- I can think of no better description – of ants. They were half way up the wall, and they were carrying the dead carcass of a very large cockroach.
Imagine the excitement in antland! Think of the joy as they made their way home with the biggest lump of food anyone had captured all week.
Still, they were calm enough when I spotted them, and they continued to work their way up the wall.
The problems they were solving were considerable. The cockroach was hundreds of times bigger and heavier than any one of them. The wall was vertical, and so somehow they had not only to drag its weight, but they also had to keep from dropping it.
What interested me, though, was what they were going to do when they got to the top – the wall didn’t go all the way up remember, so they were faced with transferring their burden from the vertical face of the wall to the horizontal surface on top. How would they do it? I stayed and watched.
Eventually, they reached the top of the wall, where they stopped. They were carrying the insect on its back, and lengthways --- fore and aft so to speak, with its head leading. You can now imagine, can’t you, how they were fixed. The problem was how to get enough leverage to tip the dead cockroach over from the vertical to the horizontal. They tried, several times, and each time they failed. They got the cockroach so that it was ready to be tipped, but they just couldn’t get enough force to bear on it to complete the job. They could get it tilted a bit, but the final topple evaded them.
What’s amazing, of course, is that the ants somehow knew what the limits were – that if they tried too hard they risked losing control and letting the cockroach drop.
So what did they do? First they tried something incredible but rather stupid. They took the cockroach back down the wall a few inches and turned it through 180 degrees and then brought it back up to try again. But what they hadn’t realised, being common squaddies and not members of the SAS, was that with the cockroach facing the opposite way, the problem was exactly the same. It was still on its back, still lengthways.
“What to do now, Lads?” That was clearly the issue in ant city now. They were not about to give up, however. What they did was what you’ve already guessed and what they should have done to start with, which was take the cockroach down the wall again and turn it not through 180 degrees but through 90 degrees so that now they were taking it up the wall sideways. As a result when they presented it to the top of the wall again, the task was easier – probably less leverage needed, and it was possible to get more ants engaged in the tipping. So, over went the cockroach, and off went the working party along the top of the wall, with renewed vigour. I swear I heard faint singing, fading away into the distance like the Red Army Choir at the end of one of their marching songs.
A month or two ago I asked a world authority on ants about this. He confirmed I hadn’t been dreaming, but pointed out that I’d made a sexist assumption and that the ants I saw were undoubtedly female.
Why Bugs 1? Because there’ll be Bugs 2 in due course. Lots of bugs in the tropics remember.
In Singapore, the heat and humidity bred insects like – well, like flies I suppose. Not that flies themselves were the main problem. In that we were lucky, compared with our comrades who served in places like Aden and Egypt, where the flies were organised into brigades, with officers and NCOs, and were practically running the country.
That, though, left several species of flying annoyances. Because we were short on entomological knowledge we called them one of two things. They were either “weirdies” or “flying kitbags.”
Weirdies were, well, weird. And some of them could nip you. Flying kitbags were huge flying beetles – so big they seemed to be defying the laws of physics, managing to keep aloft with what looked like impossible wingloadings. They were peaceful things, content to lumber around under the eaves of the huts where, presumably they had nests. Maybe they weren’t harmless at all. Maybe they had time expired National Servicemen cocooned in their nests, hoping for death like those missing crewmen in “Alien”
There were ants, too. Big, and fierce and red, like Russian soldiers. They made it impossible to sit on the grass outside the barrack rooms at Tyersall. In fact it wasn’t advisable even to stand still for any length of time. You got the feeling they could strip a horse and rider to skeletal form in short order, like the African jobs I once read about in a horror story.
They were clever devils, too. I once saw them do something that I’ve kept it to myself, because I didn’t think anyone would believe me. So do I tell you now? I only hope that among the half dozen or so people who get to read this there’ll be someone with enough ant-based knowledge to confirm that I really could have seen it.
I was in the shower. The dividing walls between the shower stalls were of brick faced with plaster, and they were about six feet high, finishing well short of the ceiling. One afternoon, I was showering blissfully, enjoying the feeling of the day’s sweat rolling away, when I became aware of movement on the wall beside me. Stepping hurriedly out, I got my glasses from the washbasin shelf where I’d left them and went back to look.
There, on the dividing wall of the shower I’d just left was a working party -- I can think of no better description – of ants. They were half way up the wall, and they were carrying the dead carcass of a very large cockroach.
Imagine the excitement in antland! Think of the joy as they made their way home with the biggest lump of food anyone had captured all week.
Still, they were calm enough when I spotted them, and they continued to work their way up the wall.
The problems they were solving were considerable. The cockroach was hundreds of times bigger and heavier than any one of them. The wall was vertical, and so somehow they had not only to drag its weight, but they also had to keep from dropping it.
What interested me, though, was what they were going to do when they got to the top – the wall didn’t go all the way up remember, so they were faced with transferring their burden from the vertical face of the wall to the horizontal surface on top. How would they do it? I stayed and watched.
Eventually, they reached the top of the wall, where they stopped. They were carrying the insect on its back, and lengthways --- fore and aft so to speak, with its head leading. You can now imagine, can’t you, how they were fixed. The problem was how to get enough leverage to tip the dead cockroach over from the vertical to the horizontal. They tried, several times, and each time they failed. They got the cockroach so that it was ready to be tipped, but they just couldn’t get enough force to bear on it to complete the job. They could get it tilted a bit, but the final topple evaded them.
What’s amazing, of course, is that the ants somehow knew what the limits were – that if they tried too hard they risked losing control and letting the cockroach drop.
So what did they do? First they tried something incredible but rather stupid. They took the cockroach back down the wall a few inches and turned it through 180 degrees and then brought it back up to try again. But what they hadn’t realised, being common squaddies and not members of the SAS, was that with the cockroach facing the opposite way, the problem was exactly the same. It was still on its back, still lengthways.
“What to do now, Lads?” That was clearly the issue in ant city now. They were not about to give up, however. What they did was what you’ve already guessed and what they should have done to start with, which was take the cockroach down the wall again and turn it not through 180 degrees but through 90 degrees so that now they were taking it up the wall sideways. As a result when they presented it to the top of the wall again, the task was easier – probably less leverage needed, and it was possible to get more ants engaged in the tipping. So, over went the cockroach, and off went the working party along the top of the wall, with renewed vigour. I swear I heard faint singing, fading away into the distance like the Red Army Choir at the end of one of their marching songs.
A month or two ago I asked a world authority on ants about this. He confirmed I hadn’t been dreaming, but pointed out that I’d made a sexist assumption and that the ants I saw were undoubtedly female.
Sunday, 4 April 2010
Reading a dodgy lesson in the Garrison Church.
My churchgoing was done at the main GHQ Garrison Church -- St George’s, Tanglin.
St George’s was the centre of my world in Singapore. Before I joined the army I’d gone to church at home and done the churchy things that young people did then -- sung in the choir, taught Sunday School and served on the Youth Club Committee. So St George’s was a blessed (in every sense) continuation of civilian life, at least for a few hours distributed through the week.
Except, of course, that it wasn’t really a civilian place. The Army is the Army. The Chaplain, a nice enough chap, was an officer, with an officer’s rank badges, so there was always some distance in the relationship. It would have been unthinkable to call him by his Christian name, for example.
Then, although I sang in the choir seated democratically (at least in the eyes of the Lord) beside a full colonel, you could never get away from the fact that as garrison church of a major headquarters St George’s could be a pretty formal place. On Sunday mornings, generals and brigadiers sat on the front row with their ladies.
I was always aware of this when read the lesson, which I did quite frequently at short notice when someone didn’t turn up. After all, I was in the choir within easy reach, and the Chaplain knew that I was good at sight reading the Bible
Mind you, it was a bit intimidating to stand at the lectern, fixed by the stony gaze of the top brass of both sexes.
“I say!” I always imagined them thinking, “This chap’s an ordinary soldier – a private for God’s sake! With an oiky Yorkshire accent! And bloody acne! And he’s reading the sacred word of God! It’s probably illegal! And we’re having to listen. Must have a quiet word with the Chaplain General!”
It was in those circumstances that I drew, one Sunday, the shortest of all possible straws.
You see there’s this passage in the Bible – in the Second Book of Kings actually -- that goes like this,
“And thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master, that I may
avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all
the servants of the Lord, at the hand of Jezebel. “
So far so good. No tricks there. But then it continues –
“For the whole house of Ahab shall perish: and I will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel.”
Now as usual, I didn’t have time to read the lesson through ahead of time. Normally that didn’t worry me, for I was quite adept at reading the immediate words on autopilot while my eye looked ahead to see what was coming.
And so suddenly, there it was, three four lines further on down the page, the dreaded word “pisseth”.
I couldn’t believe it. I slowed down a bit and glanced ahead again. Maybe I was mistaken. Perhaps it actually said “passeth” or “putteth” or something. Surely it was just my coarse mind, seeing what it wanted to see?
But no, as my voice droned automatically on, the word came reeling in, nearer and nearer, and, yes, it really did say, “pisseth”. Not only that, but it became apparent that the whole phrase was “pisseth against the wall!”
What the…! Here I was, faced with the General Officer Commanding, Far East Land Forces, the Brigadier who was Chief Signal Officer, two full colonels, and a motley crew of primped and dewy cheeked lieutenants acting as ADCs and various kinds of acolyte. And that’s not to mention the fragrant be-hatted ladies. And here was I, a bleeding Signalman about to describe an act usually carried out by drunken soldiers on a Saturday night. “Pisseth against the wall,” indeed!
My mind raced. Maybe I could change it? But into what? What were my chances of dredging up a meaningful word, in the space of five seconds, which was all that was left, while half of my brain was busy with the current line? In the end, I just went for it. “If it’s in the Bible it must be OK” I though.
So, I read it boldly, with lots of emphasis. After all, if you glance at the passage you’ll see that it calls for something of a kick on the key phrase. It’s also true – and I suggest you try this, taking care about where you are at the time – that the phrase, “Pisseth against the wall,” is quite difficult to say. It’s a bit of a tongue twister, and invites a slow, deliberate and emphatic approach. So although I didn’t actually bang my fist on the word “pisseth”, I have to say I came pretty close.
I said the sentence, and paused. As its echoes died away, I looked in a challenging way over the lectern at the row of top brass. They stared glassily back. Not one of them moved a muscle, except for the General, whose ears waggled a bit, much as my dad’s used to do when he was making me laugh in my cot. The General’s motivation was different, though.
I guess that underneath the impassiveness they were having one of two reactions. They were thinking, either, like me, “It’s in the Bible after all,” Or they had decided
“The bastard! He’s made that up! He’s done it for a bet. Bloody ignorant squaddy. He’s probably drunk. I’ll get the Chaplain to arrest him at the end of the service.”
As I sat in my pew through the sermon, I did genuinely wonder, fleetingly, whether the Chaplain would arrest me. Army Chaplains after all, are commissioned officers. People like me called them “Sir”, and saluted. They weren’t usually your friendly vicar types in those days.
I don’t think I entertained the thought for long. After a bit of consideration, I decided that everyone would be just too embarrassed to do anything other than just forget about it.
In that, I was wrong. The Chaplain came up to me in the choir vestry afterwards and smilingly pointed out that the Church of England – which thinks of everything – has standard substitutions for the Bible’s naughty bits, which make them suitable to be read aloud in the prim and proper surroundings of an English church. He acknowledged that it was his fault for not telling me this and giving me the alternative word. What it was I cannot now remember – “standeth” perhaps, or something equally bland and utterly meaningless.
St George’s was the centre of my world in Singapore. Before I joined the army I’d gone to church at home and done the churchy things that young people did then -- sung in the choir, taught Sunday School and served on the Youth Club Committee. So St George’s was a blessed (in every sense) continuation of civilian life, at least for a few hours distributed through the week.
Except, of course, that it wasn’t really a civilian place. The Army is the Army. The Chaplain, a nice enough chap, was an officer, with an officer’s rank badges, so there was always some distance in the relationship. It would have been unthinkable to call him by his Christian name, for example.
Then, although I sang in the choir seated democratically (at least in the eyes of the Lord) beside a full colonel, you could never get away from the fact that as garrison church of a major headquarters St George’s could be a pretty formal place. On Sunday mornings, generals and brigadiers sat on the front row with their ladies.
I was always aware of this when read the lesson, which I did quite frequently at short notice when someone didn’t turn up. After all, I was in the choir within easy reach, and the Chaplain knew that I was good at sight reading the Bible
Mind you, it was a bit intimidating to stand at the lectern, fixed by the stony gaze of the top brass of both sexes.
“I say!” I always imagined them thinking, “This chap’s an ordinary soldier – a private for God’s sake! With an oiky Yorkshire accent! And bloody acne! And he’s reading the sacred word of God! It’s probably illegal! And we’re having to listen. Must have a quiet word with the Chaplain General!”
It was in those circumstances that I drew, one Sunday, the shortest of all possible straws.
You see there’s this passage in the Bible – in the Second Book of Kings actually -- that goes like this,
“And thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master, that I may
avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all
the servants of the Lord, at the hand of Jezebel. “
So far so good. No tricks there. But then it continues –
“For the whole house of Ahab shall perish: and I will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel.”
Now as usual, I didn’t have time to read the lesson through ahead of time. Normally that didn’t worry me, for I was quite adept at reading the immediate words on autopilot while my eye looked ahead to see what was coming.
And so suddenly, there it was, three four lines further on down the page, the dreaded word “pisseth”.
I couldn’t believe it. I slowed down a bit and glanced ahead again. Maybe I was mistaken. Perhaps it actually said “passeth” or “putteth” or something. Surely it was just my coarse mind, seeing what it wanted to see?
But no, as my voice droned automatically on, the word came reeling in, nearer and nearer, and, yes, it really did say, “pisseth”. Not only that, but it became apparent that the whole phrase was “pisseth against the wall!”
What the…! Here I was, faced with the General Officer Commanding, Far East Land Forces, the Brigadier who was Chief Signal Officer, two full colonels, and a motley crew of primped and dewy cheeked lieutenants acting as ADCs and various kinds of acolyte. And that’s not to mention the fragrant be-hatted ladies. And here was I, a bleeding Signalman about to describe an act usually carried out by drunken soldiers on a Saturday night. “Pisseth against the wall,” indeed!
My mind raced. Maybe I could change it? But into what? What were my chances of dredging up a meaningful word, in the space of five seconds, which was all that was left, while half of my brain was busy with the current line? In the end, I just went for it. “If it’s in the Bible it must be OK” I though.
So, I read it boldly, with lots of emphasis. After all, if you glance at the passage you’ll see that it calls for something of a kick on the key phrase. It’s also true – and I suggest you try this, taking care about where you are at the time – that the phrase, “Pisseth against the wall,” is quite difficult to say. It’s a bit of a tongue twister, and invites a slow, deliberate and emphatic approach. So although I didn’t actually bang my fist on the word “pisseth”, I have to say I came pretty close.
I said the sentence, and paused. As its echoes died away, I looked in a challenging way over the lectern at the row of top brass. They stared glassily back. Not one of them moved a muscle, except for the General, whose ears waggled a bit, much as my dad’s used to do when he was making me laugh in my cot. The General’s motivation was different, though.
I guess that underneath the impassiveness they were having one of two reactions. They were thinking, either, like me, “It’s in the Bible after all,” Or they had decided
“The bastard! He’s made that up! He’s done it for a bet. Bloody ignorant squaddy. He’s probably drunk. I’ll get the Chaplain to arrest him at the end of the service.”
As I sat in my pew through the sermon, I did genuinely wonder, fleetingly, whether the Chaplain would arrest me. Army Chaplains after all, are commissioned officers. People like me called them “Sir”, and saluted. They weren’t usually your friendly vicar types in those days.
I don’t think I entertained the thought for long. After a bit of consideration, I decided that everyone would be just too embarrassed to do anything other than just forget about it.
In that, I was wrong. The Chaplain came up to me in the choir vestry afterwards and smilingly pointed out that the Church of England – which thinks of everything – has standard substitutions for the Bible’s naughty bits, which make them suitable to be read aloud in the prim and proper surroundings of an English church. He acknowledged that it was his fault for not telling me this and giving me the alternative word. What it was I cannot now remember – “standeth” perhaps, or something equally bland and utterly meaningless.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Goodbye England
Posted to GHQ Signal Regiment, Far East Land Forces, I sailed for Singapore on board the Troopship Empire Orwell, one of several troopers in use at the time, most of them with “River” names – the Empire Fowey was another.
I don’t know how many of us there were on board, but it was an awful lot – probably upward of fifteen hundred. Officers travelled first class, in shared cabins, but as ordinary soldiers we were on what were known as the “Troopdecks”. These were big below-deck spaces – holds, really – filled with rows and rows of folding bunks. The arrangement of the bunks was very space efficient. They were in sixes – three high and two side by side. Another six started a few inches from your head, and yet another a few inches beyond your feet. Across a very narrow gangway was another row, and beyond that another and so on, into what looked like infinity. The whole ship just a big floating block of humanity. The most irksome thing about the arrangement – apart from the obvious claustrophobia of it all – was the lack of space to put your stuff. You had a locker, but it could be a long way from your bunk, and so it had to be locked and carefully watched – and you really couldn’t bring very much to your bunk. A book – and my specs -- had to stay in bed with me when I went to sleep because there was nowhere else to put them.
During the day, soldiers were drilled and lectured at, lest they get lazy and mutinous. The fear was, presumably, that we’d take over the ship and sail off over the horizon to an island paradise peopled by dusky beauties. Now there’s a thought.
So most of us were kept busy drilling and doing PE. A few, though – the lucky ones -- were given actual jobs to do, helping the crew, away from Army discipline. That, thank heaven, after a few days, was me.
I was doubly lucky, because not only did I have a cosy job in the bakery, helping the baker who already had a good enough assistant of his own, but I was also on the night shift. So at night, when I was working, I was in the depths of the ship, out of the way of the crowded troopdecks. Then in the daytime I could quite legally sleep on the empty troopdeck -- after, I should add, a huge breakfast in the galley. (Big breakfasts were a strong feature of my early months in the Army.)
The baker was a genial Londoner. He always had a fag in his mouth, with about an inch of ash on it, ready to drop into the bread mix. His assistant was Northern Irish and very kind to his incompetent slaves. We really had hardly anything to do except sit and gossip. They both had stories to tell about the great liners, including the Queen Elizabeth – that’s the first one, not the QE2—which they insisted was a death trap, its hull patched endless times by the simple expedient of pouring concrete into the gap between the double skin.
“Full o’ concrete!” they’d say. “Won’t catch me sailing on her.”
At some point during the night I’d go up on deck with a big cardboard box full of rubbish – potato peelings, tins – and drop it over the stern. I don’t think you’re allowed to do that now. It’s too environmentally unfriendly. The environment hadn’t been discovered then, so everything went over the side. It’s said that during the war the U boats followed trails of garbage to find merchant ships, until the crews got wise to what was happening.
After I’d dropped the box I’d stay there and gaze down at the wake and imagine myself just slipping over the rail and jumping, and swimming steadily until I reached whatever land was nearest – Malta, or North Africa perhaps. No-one would see me go. Everyone would assume me dead, until at some safe time in the far future I would turn up on the doorstep at home, with long hair and a beard. “Hi Mum, I’m home!”
All that went through my head as I gazed back along the ship’s wake. Now, my wife and I like to go on cruises, and I often re-enact that scene. I stand alone, in the night on the stern with the wake stretching away into the dark, and the memories come back.
I don’t know how many of us there were on board, but it was an awful lot – probably upward of fifteen hundred. Officers travelled first class, in shared cabins, but as ordinary soldiers we were on what were known as the “Troopdecks”. These were big below-deck spaces – holds, really – filled with rows and rows of folding bunks. The arrangement of the bunks was very space efficient. They were in sixes – three high and two side by side. Another six started a few inches from your head, and yet another a few inches beyond your feet. Across a very narrow gangway was another row, and beyond that another and so on, into what looked like infinity. The whole ship just a big floating block of humanity. The most irksome thing about the arrangement – apart from the obvious claustrophobia of it all – was the lack of space to put your stuff. You had a locker, but it could be a long way from your bunk, and so it had to be locked and carefully watched – and you really couldn’t bring very much to your bunk. A book – and my specs -- had to stay in bed with me when I went to sleep because there was nowhere else to put them.
During the day, soldiers were drilled and lectured at, lest they get lazy and mutinous. The fear was, presumably, that we’d take over the ship and sail off over the horizon to an island paradise peopled by dusky beauties. Now there’s a thought.
So most of us were kept busy drilling and doing PE. A few, though – the lucky ones -- were given actual jobs to do, helping the crew, away from Army discipline. That, thank heaven, after a few days, was me.
I was doubly lucky, because not only did I have a cosy job in the bakery, helping the baker who already had a good enough assistant of his own, but I was also on the night shift. So at night, when I was working, I was in the depths of the ship, out of the way of the crowded troopdecks. Then in the daytime I could quite legally sleep on the empty troopdeck -- after, I should add, a huge breakfast in the galley. (Big breakfasts were a strong feature of my early months in the Army.)
The baker was a genial Londoner. He always had a fag in his mouth, with about an inch of ash on it, ready to drop into the bread mix. His assistant was Northern Irish and very kind to his incompetent slaves. We really had hardly anything to do except sit and gossip. They both had stories to tell about the great liners, including the Queen Elizabeth – that’s the first one, not the QE2—which they insisted was a death trap, its hull patched endless times by the simple expedient of pouring concrete into the gap between the double skin.
“Full o’ concrete!” they’d say. “Won’t catch me sailing on her.”
At some point during the night I’d go up on deck with a big cardboard box full of rubbish – potato peelings, tins – and drop it over the stern. I don’t think you’re allowed to do that now. It’s too environmentally unfriendly. The environment hadn’t been discovered then, so everything went over the side. It’s said that during the war the U boats followed trails of garbage to find merchant ships, until the crews got wise to what was happening.
After I’d dropped the box I’d stay there and gaze down at the wake and imagine myself just slipping over the rail and jumping, and swimming steadily until I reached whatever land was nearest – Malta, or North Africa perhaps. No-one would see me go. Everyone would assume me dead, until at some safe time in the far future I would turn up on the doorstep at home, with long hair and a beard. “Hi Mum, I’m home!”
All that went through my head as I gazed back along the ship’s wake. Now, my wife and I like to go on cruises, and I often re-enact that scene. I stand alone, in the night on the stern with the wake stretching away into the dark, and the memories come back.
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Hosetops and puttees
It’s not possible to talk about Singapore without mentioning the climate. It doesn’t take long to describe it – it’s very hot and very humid, with occasional brief torrential downpours that make the pavements steam with vapour when the sun comes out again.
For a Northern European, the steamy heat is scarcely bearable. In colonial days it was recognised that, for career diplomats or businessmen, a long posting to Singapore would shorten your life. The right to a “long leave” (six months for example) back home every few years was built into many contracts – in fact the then Governor, Sir Shenton Thomas, was on long leave in England during much of the crucial period when Singapore’s defences should have been built up during 1940.
A climate like that demands careful thought about what you’re going to wear. Which is why, through many years, Europeans, with long experience of Empire and service in the tropics, have ignored the dress developed over centuries by local people and deliberately and consistently worn entirely inappropriate clothing.
Standard military dress consisted of olive green shorts and tunic, worn with a webbing belt and a beret. (We were issued with a floppy hat in olive green. Troops up country in Malaya often wore them, but we never did)
After dark, to protect from insects, we wore long trousers in the same starched olive green material, and the sleeves of the tunic could be – but rarely were -- rolled down and buttoned at the wrist. Under the tunic (and under civilian shirts) we always wore a vest to soak up the sweat.
In the daytime, in offices and working areas away from the public most of us, apart from officers, went naked above the waist. This was called “Bare buff order.” (Officers didn’t do such things. Even today, whether or not a man goes naked above the waist in public in hot weather is a social class issue.)
Footwear varied. With ordinary working gear we could wear black shoes rather than boots, but only if we bought them ourselves. With shoes went long khaki socks with garter flashes in the Regimental colours. The alternative was to wear issue Army boots with regulation grey socks, which we wore rolled down to the boot tops only when we were in bare buff. That basic gear – bare buff, shorts, boots and rolled down socks – was standard for everyone who did any sort of manual work out of sight of the civilian world outside.
For parade occasions when we were on view to the public – at Church Parade for example -- we wore, with our shorts and tunics, our best Army boots with those diabolical twins, hosetops and puttees.
The best way to explain these is to describe the process of putting them on.
First, there was a pair of standard Army woollen socks – thick grey jobs that came up above the ankle. Then came the hosetops. These were Regimental blue kneelength thick woollen stockings with no feet in them. You pulled them up so they folded over just below the knee, and finished at the top of the boots and socks. They were held up with elastic garters embellished with Regimental garter flashes.
The boots themselves were next – standard issue leather ankle boots with metal studs and hard toecaps, all polished to a mirror finish.
Finally, you wound on your puttees.
Over the years the Army has worn its puttees (the word obviously came from India) in various ways. Our puttees were lengths of coarse khaki material perhaps a yard long and four inches wide, ending in a thinner, ribbon like section that was used for fastening. The Signals method was to wind them round the ankle so as to overlap the top of the boot, not extending up the calf, as was the practice in earlier years, but simply covering the untidy looking junction between the bottom of the hosetops, and the top of the socks and boots. If all of that sounds crazily difficult, what made it really impossible was the existence of lots of little rules about exactly how you wore all this stuff – the depth to which the hosetop turned over below the knee, the tiny but exact degree of overlap of each succeeding wind of the puttee, the precise finishing point of the fully wound puttee, the way you dealt with the end of the ribbon that held the puttee on. Get it right and it looked tight and neat. Wrong, and at the first forward step the top of your boot escaped from under the puttee, and the puttee itself started to unwind. Nothing made you feel more inadequate – and this happened to me more than once – than the realisation that one of your puttees was adrift and trailing behind as you marched.
In thirty two degrees of heat, and humidity that made mildew grow before your eyes, it was madness to make us encase our feet and lower legs in thick wool and leather. And just to make sure we didn’t miss the craziness of it, we were given antiseptic foot powder and treated to lectures on how to prevent our feet from rotting away. The saving grace was that as soon as we got back to camp we took everything off, showered and went around the barrack room area in a pair of flip flops and a towel.
For a Northern European, the steamy heat is scarcely bearable. In colonial days it was recognised that, for career diplomats or businessmen, a long posting to Singapore would shorten your life. The right to a “long leave” (six months for example) back home every few years was built into many contracts – in fact the then Governor, Sir Shenton Thomas, was on long leave in England during much of the crucial period when Singapore’s defences should have been built up during 1940.
A climate like that demands careful thought about what you’re going to wear. Which is why, through many years, Europeans, with long experience of Empire and service in the tropics, have ignored the dress developed over centuries by local people and deliberately and consistently worn entirely inappropriate clothing.
Standard military dress consisted of olive green shorts and tunic, worn with a webbing belt and a beret. (We were issued with a floppy hat in olive green. Troops up country in Malaya often wore them, but we never did)
After dark, to protect from insects, we wore long trousers in the same starched olive green material, and the sleeves of the tunic could be – but rarely were -- rolled down and buttoned at the wrist. Under the tunic (and under civilian shirts) we always wore a vest to soak up the sweat.
In the daytime, in offices and working areas away from the public most of us, apart from officers, went naked above the waist. This was called “Bare buff order.” (Officers didn’t do such things. Even today, whether or not a man goes naked above the waist in public in hot weather is a social class issue.)
Footwear varied. With ordinary working gear we could wear black shoes rather than boots, but only if we bought them ourselves. With shoes went long khaki socks with garter flashes in the Regimental colours. The alternative was to wear issue Army boots with regulation grey socks, which we wore rolled down to the boot tops only when we were in bare buff. That basic gear – bare buff, shorts, boots and rolled down socks – was standard for everyone who did any sort of manual work out of sight of the civilian world outside.
For parade occasions when we were on view to the public – at Church Parade for example -- we wore, with our shorts and tunics, our best Army boots with those diabolical twins, hosetops and puttees.
The best way to explain these is to describe the process of putting them on.
First, there was a pair of standard Army woollen socks – thick grey jobs that came up above the ankle. Then came the hosetops. These were Regimental blue kneelength thick woollen stockings with no feet in them. You pulled them up so they folded over just below the knee, and finished at the top of the boots and socks. They were held up with elastic garters embellished with Regimental garter flashes.
The boots themselves were next – standard issue leather ankle boots with metal studs and hard toecaps, all polished to a mirror finish.
Finally, you wound on your puttees.
Over the years the Army has worn its puttees (the word obviously came from India) in various ways. Our puttees were lengths of coarse khaki material perhaps a yard long and four inches wide, ending in a thinner, ribbon like section that was used for fastening. The Signals method was to wind them round the ankle so as to overlap the top of the boot, not extending up the calf, as was the practice in earlier years, but simply covering the untidy looking junction between the bottom of the hosetops, and the top of the socks and boots. If all of that sounds crazily difficult, what made it really impossible was the existence of lots of little rules about exactly how you wore all this stuff – the depth to which the hosetop turned over below the knee, the tiny but exact degree of overlap of each succeeding wind of the puttee, the precise finishing point of the fully wound puttee, the way you dealt with the end of the ribbon that held the puttee on. Get it right and it looked tight and neat. Wrong, and at the first forward step the top of your boot escaped from under the puttee, and the puttee itself started to unwind. Nothing made you feel more inadequate – and this happened to me more than once – than the realisation that one of your puttees was adrift and trailing behind as you marched.
In thirty two degrees of heat, and humidity that made mildew grow before your eyes, it was madness to make us encase our feet and lower legs in thick wool and leather. And just to make sure we didn’t miss the craziness of it, we were given antiseptic foot powder and treated to lectures on how to prevent our feet from rotting away. The saving grace was that as soon as we got back to camp we took everything off, showered and went around the barrack room area in a pair of flip flops and a towel.
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Gentlemen and others
Gentlemen and others
I arrived at Tyersall as a Signalman – a private soldier, bottom of the heap (or salt of the earth, whatever your point of view). I left proudly bearing the same rank.
There’s a particular, maybe perverse pride for me in having done the whole of my National Service as one of the Her Majesty’s privates (as it were). I didn’t even make “Lance-jack” – the one stripe lance-corporal that was just one step up the ladder and was, actually, well within reach of any competent soldier within two years. That I couldn’t manage even that says a lot about my soldierly qualities.
So I stayed at the foot of the ladder, and compensated by being an inverted snob about it in the years immediately afterwards. In the post-National Service days, when people were still talking about their service, I often mixed with people who had been officers, and I never failed to let them know that I hadn’t lived a life of luxury in the officers’ mess. (Usually, interestingly enough, it was their wives and girl friends who were most impressed by this, because suddenly they had living proof that their husbands hadn’t been nearly as badly done by in the forces as they claimed.)
This preoccupation simply reflects life in the services, where your rank is what really matters. (Arguably, the same applies in civilian life, though not as much as it once did.) In the services, you wear your badges of rank, and when you meet someone else in uniform you know instantly whether they can give you orders or whether it’s the other way round. It all has to do, of course, with quick decision making under pressure, in battle.
To describe all of the ranks would probably be boring. There’s one dividing line, though – more of a gulf really – in the rank structure that you need to understand. It’s there in the each of the Services -- Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines -- and it’s that between commissioned officers and “other ranks.” It’s important in this story, because some National Servicemen were the one thing, and some (most, in fact) were the other. I harboured dreams of being one, but inevitably ended up as the other.
Of course, had I been offered the Queen’s commission when I went in, I’d have accepted it like a shot. I fancied the better uniform, the swagger stick, the nice peaked cap, being called “Sir” and the chance of being saluted in the street. In fact when I first went in I asked about it. After all, with three A Levels I was better qualified on paper than most recruits – than most officers in fact. But the officer interviewing me took one look, shook his head and said, “Maybe after three months you could apply.”
I guess he knew that it wouldn’t take me three months to realise that I was more likely to become Pope than receive the Queen’s commission.
It was all, you see, a matter of class. Up to then I’d had quite a sheltered upbringing as an only child in a mining family. I’d been to grammar school and passed a few exams, and been readily accepted by the middle class families of my friends -- suburban accountants, middle managers. To me, they were genuine posh people, the real thing. They lived in semi-detached houses with bay windows and had fitted carpets.
They were, I thought, the ones at the top. I simply hadn’t met the people further up the ladder, from whom most of the officer corps was drawn. Their children didn’t go to the schools we went to, and they certainly weren’t to be found doing the Veleta in a Church hall to a Dansette record player, which was our idea of a good night out. Those were the people who automatically assumed that they would become officers. Even the way they put it spoke volumes. They didn’t say, “I became an officer,” they said, “I took a commission.” It wasn’t an achievement you see, it was a right.
I arrived at Tyersall as a Signalman – a private soldier, bottom of the heap (or salt of the earth, whatever your point of view). I left proudly bearing the same rank.
There’s a particular, maybe perverse pride for me in having done the whole of my National Service as one of the Her Majesty’s privates (as it were). I didn’t even make “Lance-jack” – the one stripe lance-corporal that was just one step up the ladder and was, actually, well within reach of any competent soldier within two years. That I couldn’t manage even that says a lot about my soldierly qualities.
So I stayed at the foot of the ladder, and compensated by being an inverted snob about it in the years immediately afterwards. In the post-National Service days, when people were still talking about their service, I often mixed with people who had been officers, and I never failed to let them know that I hadn’t lived a life of luxury in the officers’ mess. (Usually, interestingly enough, it was their wives and girl friends who were most impressed by this, because suddenly they had living proof that their husbands hadn’t been nearly as badly done by in the forces as they claimed.)
This preoccupation simply reflects life in the services, where your rank is what really matters. (Arguably, the same applies in civilian life, though not as much as it once did.) In the services, you wear your badges of rank, and when you meet someone else in uniform you know instantly whether they can give you orders or whether it’s the other way round. It all has to do, of course, with quick decision making under pressure, in battle.
To describe all of the ranks would probably be boring. There’s one dividing line, though – more of a gulf really – in the rank structure that you need to understand. It’s there in the each of the Services -- Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines -- and it’s that between commissioned officers and “other ranks.” It’s important in this story, because some National Servicemen were the one thing, and some (most, in fact) were the other. I harboured dreams of being one, but inevitably ended up as the other.
Of course, had I been offered the Queen’s commission when I went in, I’d have accepted it like a shot. I fancied the better uniform, the swagger stick, the nice peaked cap, being called “Sir” and the chance of being saluted in the street. In fact when I first went in I asked about it. After all, with three A Levels I was better qualified on paper than most recruits – than most officers in fact. But the officer interviewing me took one look, shook his head and said, “Maybe after three months you could apply.”
I guess he knew that it wouldn’t take me three months to realise that I was more likely to become Pope than receive the Queen’s commission.
It was all, you see, a matter of class. Up to then I’d had quite a sheltered upbringing as an only child in a mining family. I’d been to grammar school and passed a few exams, and been readily accepted by the middle class families of my friends -- suburban accountants, middle managers. To me, they were genuine posh people, the real thing. They lived in semi-detached houses with bay windows and had fitted carpets.
They were, I thought, the ones at the top. I simply hadn’t met the people further up the ladder, from whom most of the officer corps was drawn. Their children didn’t go to the schools we went to, and they certainly weren’t to be found doing the Veleta in a Church hall to a Dansette record player, which was our idea of a good night out. Those were the people who automatically assumed that they would become officers. Even the way they put it spoke volumes. They didn’t say, “I became an officer,” they said, “I took a commission.” It wasn’t an achievement you see, it was a right.
Thursday, 21 January 2010
Monkeys and Parrots 8. Chasing memories.
I did my National Service in Singapore. Over forty years later, I went back there. On my first morning I got up early, left my wife sleeping off jetlag and walked the short distance from the Shangri La Hotel into the top of Orchard Road. I was restless, and anxious to renew my acquaintance with the City.
For the moment it wasn’t too hot. The early mornings are the best time of the day in Singapore. Before the real heat arrives, the air’s like wine. It’s invariably still, too, and once upon a time there’d have been smoke rising from kampong (village) fires on the outskirts of the City, and spreading out sideways as it met the overnight temperature inversion a few feet up. No kampongs now though. Just acres of high buildings, villas, cultivated tropical gardens, roads, dual carriageways.
I turned from Orchard Road into Tanglin Road. I knew the way perfectly. The buildings were different – more so than I could have imagined. There was no Manchester United shop in Tanglin Road forty-three years before for one thing -- but the road layout underneath it all was as familiar as that of my home town, even though the roundabout I remembered at the start of Tanglin Road had been replaced by traffic lights.
I passed the gates of the Botanical Gardens – the gates were the same -- and a little further on headed off the Tanglin road to the right into Tyersall Avenue. There I started up the camcorder, the archetypal tourist. Now the heat was coming. Soon it would be very hot and very sweaty. In that respect, too, the place hadn’t changed since I’d been there all that time before.
“My old army camp was up this road,” I said, self consciously, into the camcorder mike. “I’m pretty sure it won’t be the same. Maybe it’ll be used for something else, or it might even be derelict.”
Tyersall Avenue’s quite a narrow road, much like an English lane with hedges, except that beyond the hedges instead of cows and fields, there’s dense tropical undergrowth – rain forest really.
In the Fifties, Tyersall Camp was perhaps half a mile up the Avenue, on the left after a series of bends, well out of sight of where I was standing when I first spoke into the microphone.
Tyersall wasn’t the most comfortable of Army camps. The huts were all wooden, and despite the slatted shutters, deep verandahs and ceiling fans, they were unbearable in the heat of the Singapore day. On balance, though, we were happy to be a mile or so away from the main Tanglin Barracks, where most of the GHQ staff were based, dominated by all the palaver and bull of a major HQ.
I kept walking, with the camcorder running. “I feel quite strange,” I said into the mike. “And I just don’t know what to expect.”
In truth I didn’t expect much, but I walked on, craning to look to my left where, in 1956, the camp would have been visible over the hedge. Now, in 2000, there was only jungle. Then, there would have been coming into view rows of huts arranged inside a perimeter road maybe half a mile in circumference that we called “Camp Circle”. In the middle of the Circle, and of the huts was the parade ground and the offices of the Colonel – Lieutenant-Colonel R.B.S. Eraut – and the fearsome Regimental Sergeant Major, WO1 P.E.A. Hall (and no, we daren’t call him ‘Pea’ even privately among ourselves.)
It couldn’t all have gone could it?
Yes, it could.
I walked the full length of the stretch of Tyersall Avenue where the camp entrance used to be – that wide turning into the camp, with a lifting barrier, and the guardroom. But there was absolutely nothing to be seen. The hedge by the road was continuous. The rainforest was intact right up to the hedge. A ditch bordered the road for the whole of its distance, offering no sign that it had ever been other than unbroken.
It was a surreal, science fiction moment. I didn’t expect to see Tyersall Camp intact. But I genuinely thought there’d be something to see – though more sensible members of my family always stumped me when they asked, “What, exactly?”
I suppose I thought there’d be, well, some open space with overgrown concrete bases and so on. Something to wander about in, no matter how derelict.
What there was, though, was what I least expected – which was absolutely nothing. Not so much as the slightest sign or mark on the landscape that there had ever been an army camp there, home to a thousand soldiers, a park full of vehicles, a parade ground, some offices, a little chapel. All was entirely vanished under the jungle.
I stood there gobsmacked for quite a while. Then I walked to and fro wondering if I’d got the right place – which, of course, I had. I was searching in that futile way that you do – like when you’ve lost your keys and you keep looking again and again in the same place, even though you know they aren’t there.
I knew Singapore had changed enormously. I knew I’d find big differences. This, though, was more than a big difference. This was going back to your old school and finding a reservoir or a cow pasture.
I felt strangely bereft, as if a bit of my past had been rubbed out.
For the moment it wasn’t too hot. The early mornings are the best time of the day in Singapore. Before the real heat arrives, the air’s like wine. It’s invariably still, too, and once upon a time there’d have been smoke rising from kampong (village) fires on the outskirts of the City, and spreading out sideways as it met the overnight temperature inversion a few feet up. No kampongs now though. Just acres of high buildings, villas, cultivated tropical gardens, roads, dual carriageways.
I turned from Orchard Road into Tanglin Road. I knew the way perfectly. The buildings were different – more so than I could have imagined. There was no Manchester United shop in Tanglin Road forty-three years before for one thing -- but the road layout underneath it all was as familiar as that of my home town, even though the roundabout I remembered at the start of Tanglin Road had been replaced by traffic lights.
I passed the gates of the Botanical Gardens – the gates were the same -- and a little further on headed off the Tanglin road to the right into Tyersall Avenue. There I started up the camcorder, the archetypal tourist. Now the heat was coming. Soon it would be very hot and very sweaty. In that respect, too, the place hadn’t changed since I’d been there all that time before.
“My old army camp was up this road,” I said, self consciously, into the camcorder mike. “I’m pretty sure it won’t be the same. Maybe it’ll be used for something else, or it might even be derelict.”
Tyersall Avenue’s quite a narrow road, much like an English lane with hedges, except that beyond the hedges instead of cows and fields, there’s dense tropical undergrowth – rain forest really.
In the Fifties, Tyersall Camp was perhaps half a mile up the Avenue, on the left after a series of bends, well out of sight of where I was standing when I first spoke into the microphone.
Tyersall wasn’t the most comfortable of Army camps. The huts were all wooden, and despite the slatted shutters, deep verandahs and ceiling fans, they were unbearable in the heat of the Singapore day. On balance, though, we were happy to be a mile or so away from the main Tanglin Barracks, where most of the GHQ staff were based, dominated by all the palaver and bull of a major HQ.
I kept walking, with the camcorder running. “I feel quite strange,” I said into the mike. “And I just don’t know what to expect.”
In truth I didn’t expect much, but I walked on, craning to look to my left where, in 1956, the camp would have been visible over the hedge. Now, in 2000, there was only jungle. Then, there would have been coming into view rows of huts arranged inside a perimeter road maybe half a mile in circumference that we called “Camp Circle”. In the middle of the Circle, and of the huts was the parade ground and the offices of the Colonel – Lieutenant-Colonel R.B.S. Eraut – and the fearsome Regimental Sergeant Major, WO1 P.E.A. Hall (and no, we daren’t call him ‘Pea’ even privately among ourselves.)
It couldn’t all have gone could it?
Yes, it could.
I walked the full length of the stretch of Tyersall Avenue where the camp entrance used to be – that wide turning into the camp, with a lifting barrier, and the guardroom. But there was absolutely nothing to be seen. The hedge by the road was continuous. The rainforest was intact right up to the hedge. A ditch bordered the road for the whole of its distance, offering no sign that it had ever been other than unbroken.
It was a surreal, science fiction moment. I didn’t expect to see Tyersall Camp intact. But I genuinely thought there’d be something to see – though more sensible members of my family always stumped me when they asked, “What, exactly?”
I suppose I thought there’d be, well, some open space with overgrown concrete bases and so on. Something to wander about in, no matter how derelict.
What there was, though, was what I least expected – which was absolutely nothing. Not so much as the slightest sign or mark on the landscape that there had ever been an army camp there, home to a thousand soldiers, a park full of vehicles, a parade ground, some offices, a little chapel. All was entirely vanished under the jungle.
I stood there gobsmacked for quite a while. Then I walked to and fro wondering if I’d got the right place – which, of course, I had. I was searching in that futile way that you do – like when you’ve lost your keys and you keep looking again and again in the same place, even though you know they aren’t there.
I knew Singapore had changed enormously. I knew I’d find big differences. This, though, was more than a big difference. This was going back to your old school and finding a reservoir or a cow pasture.
I felt strangely bereft, as if a bit of my past had been rubbed out.
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Monkeys and Parrots 7. Let loose with a rifle.
Because I enjoyed drill, I became an unusual recruit. At what you might call static soldiery – keeping my kit, clothing and boots immaculate – I was inept. Everything – polish on the brasses, shine on the boots – was at the margin of acceptability, and until I got to the Far East, where there were lowly paid local people to look after me, I was something of what the Americans used to call “a sad sack.” At mobile soldiery, however – foot drill, rifle drill, marching – I was fine. I’d been a keen cyclist, and in the school cross-country running team. Most of the other lads had left school at fifteen and so had spent three years devoted to beer, cigarettes and the pursuit of girls. So I had no problem at all with the physical demands of soldiering.
We also, of course, were taught the basics of actually using our weapons -- how to handle and fire our rifles. And, yes, we really did have “Naming of Parts”, complete with “...the piling swivel, Which in your case you have not got.” (Henry Reed's World War II poem, “Naming of Parts”.)Every soldier then had a standard issue .303 rifle – really the one that had fought the First World War, with just some largely cosmetic changes. We learned to fire it, and were tested in our marksmanship on the rifle range. I have no memory of how good or bad I was, but I assume that I passed whatever standard was applied. I do remember, though, how cold it was on that range up on the Yorkshire Moors. I also fired the Sten gun – a clever little sub-machine gun of skeletal construction that was reputed to cost only a few bob to make.
The rifle was unsophisticated, reliable, lethal and accurate up to half a mile. It only fired single shots, though, and the magazine held a single clip of a handful of rounds (was it seven? Something like that) You fired, then you manipulated the bolt to get another round from the magazine into the breech so you could fire again. It didn’t take long to do that, but it wasn’t a machine gun. At that time, you see, it was thought that you couldn’t give ordinary soldiers automatic weapons as standard issue, because they would poop them off willy nilly, wasting ammunition and endangering everyone around. Now, though, presumably reflecting the advance of technology and improved training, standard infantry weapons are effectively sub-machine guns – and by all accounts they’re not as reliable as our venerable rifles were.
So there we were. After four weeks we could shoot, march, keep ourselves and our kit clean and smart and obey orders. We were real soldiers, fit to be let loose on leave in the Queen’s uniform.
We also, of course, were taught the basics of actually using our weapons -- how to handle and fire our rifles. And, yes, we really did have “Naming of Parts”, complete with “...the piling swivel, Which in your case you have not got.” (Henry Reed's World War II poem, “Naming of Parts”.)Every soldier then had a standard issue .303 rifle – really the one that had fought the First World War, with just some largely cosmetic changes. We learned to fire it, and were tested in our marksmanship on the rifle range. I have no memory of how good or bad I was, but I assume that I passed whatever standard was applied. I do remember, though, how cold it was on that range up on the Yorkshire Moors. I also fired the Sten gun – a clever little sub-machine gun of skeletal construction that was reputed to cost only a few bob to make.
The rifle was unsophisticated, reliable, lethal and accurate up to half a mile. It only fired single shots, though, and the magazine held a single clip of a handful of rounds (was it seven? Something like that) You fired, then you manipulated the bolt to get another round from the magazine into the breech so you could fire again. It didn’t take long to do that, but it wasn’t a machine gun. At that time, you see, it was thought that you couldn’t give ordinary soldiers automatic weapons as standard issue, because they would poop them off willy nilly, wasting ammunition and endangering everyone around. Now, though, presumably reflecting the advance of technology and improved training, standard infantry weapons are effectively sub-machine guns – and by all accounts they’re not as reliable as our venerable rifles were.
So there we were. After four weeks we could shoot, march, keep ourselves and our kit clean and smart and obey orders. We were real soldiers, fit to be let loose on leave in the Queen’s uniform.
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