King's Cross Kid (23 page)

With much muttering about what we were going to do to this bloke if any of us met him in a dark alley, we made our way to the bathhouse and the freezing cold showers.

After the shower we discovered the shirt and vests didn’t fit and the jackets were miles too narrow and the boots miles too big. On the stroke of four we all trooped down to the canteen, a real sorry looking lot. When he saw us the sergeant looked as if he was going to throw a fit but after a couple of seconds he saw the funny side of the situation. ‘OK, lads, get this meal down yer guts and we’ll be off to the stores again. Thirty minutes sharp.’ He left us with half a dozen other blokes who had arrived the day before. We began to sort each other out, exchange names and other information about ourselves. We were a room full of strangers but didn’t realise we were creating bonds that would tie us together for as long as life itself.

The sergeant turned up exactly thirty minutes later and in no time we were all dressed up in His Majesty’s official finery with everything fitting like a glove. One item made me realise that I was in a different world – the boots. They weighed a ton and made the thin shoes I had arrived in, and which were now in the dustbin, seem like paper. The amazing thing was the speed with which I got used to them. Those boots were my initiation into the world of spit and polish.

Later, in the canteen the sergeant gave us a pep talk. ‘Right you lot, listen to what I am going to say, and remember: in this regiment we only have room for men who can handle things in the proper manner. You get told once and once only. At six in the morning the bugler will be blasting yer eardrums out. That’s when you crawl out of your stink pits. At six thirty you’re down on the parade ground in your gym kit. And if you are late, God help you. Right, supper in the canteen at nineteen hundred hours. Dismiss.’

The next morning we were on the parade ground in the pouring rain, jumping up and down doing something called ‘running on the spot’, which seemed a waste of time to me. If you’re going to run then you may as well run somewhere. By the time we were back in the barrack room some of the lads were beginning to think of ways to make a hasty exit from the predicament they had landed themselves in. Not me. I was beginning to enjoy myself. This was a challenge and I was ready to flex my muscles.

It took another two weeks before enough recruits arrived to make up the twenty-five men required for a training squad and another week of lectures before we held our first formal parade on the garrison square. We paraded complete with rifles (less firing pins), and by now we knew all too well that being a British soldier wasn’t going to be a cakewalk.

There was one thing that linked my new world to my old. On the streets round King’s Cross and Soho I had learnt to stand my ground and I would have to do the same thing on the parade ground in Winchester. The new intake wasn’t short of lads who wanted to prove that they were top dog, and if you gave in to any of them you had had it. It took a fortnight to sort everything out. At the end of that time I knew who my mates were and would stand by them come what may

The Rifle Brigade was largely made up of Londoners. Your loyalties depended on which side of the River Thames you came from. Their were the ‘northerners’ and the ‘southerners’, each doing their best to outdo the other. This was encouraged by our masters. They reckoned the competition was good for us. If things got nasty the NCOs arranged for the two sides to meet in the gym and battle it out in the ring.

I didn’t find it difficult to adapt to this new life; it was just a natural extension of the way I had always lived. The lads who found it difficult were the ones who had led a more sheltered life. There was one chap in the squad who had been forced to enlist by his father, a man who had once been a senior officer in the regiment. The boy had been to public school and had to start from the bottom. Luckily for him he was soon spotted by the colonel and whisked off to the safety of another establishment.

There was a sergeant who came from the battalion base at Tidworth to give us lectures, one of which emphasised the importance of looking on your section, platoon, company or indeed the whole battalion as one gang in which you all looked after each other, even if you hated the guts of the man standing next to you. ‘That’s the way this regiment fights its battles, that’s why we have less losses than the brass button mobs.’ (‘Brass button mobs’ was how we referred to the Guards regiments.)

Of the six of us who arrived on that train, four of us formed a strong friendship: Frankie Batt, Tommy Vine, Reggie Cole and me.

Tommy Vine got his early on at a place named Solum, on the very edge of the Libyan border. Frankie Batt was laid to rest at Alamein. Reggie made it to the end, all the way from the Western Desert, up through Italy and into France, almost into Germany itself, before the war ended. He breathed his last six years later of a dodgy heart condition.

I am the last survivor of that little group who offered themselves for service on 18 October 1937.

44

The End of the Beginning

After the first month of training we were given railway vouchers and a week’s leave. Surprisingly, only about half the lads took the opportunity to go home. I spent quite a few nights wondering what sort of reception I would get. It had been nearly five weeks since I’d left. I had only written two letters home to my mum. She had answered them both, telling me not to worry. ‘You never can tell, Victor, might be for the best, and you had to find your feet sometime.’

When I finally got home I made my way down the narrow stairs that led to our gran’s kitchen. I noticed how dark and cramped it all was. ‘Well, for the life of me, you have grown in such a short time, must be the food,’ said my gran after she had given me a hug and a kiss. For the first time I noticed that my gran’s hair was a silvery-grey. When Mum came home from work she was all smiles with the odd tear sliding down her cheeks. Then gran said, ‘I want you to take us all to church on Sunday, and with you wearing that nice new uniform we are all going to be very proud of you, Victor.’ Mum went to great pains to assure me that she had more than enough to get by on and that the hundred pounds in the post office account had increased to a hundred and twenty. Brother John was still slaving away at the grocer’s shop, and sister Emmy was going to try for grammar.

I was shocked to discover that my mate Roscoe was doing a spell in Wandsworth. I never found out what he had been done for, and I never found out what happened about the baby his girl was expecting. When I went round to his house his mum and dad were all over me. They were very upset about Roscoe’s bit of trouble and said how much better it would have been if Roscoe had joined up with me. I agreed and said you can’t have too many good mates when you’re among strangers. I couldn’t think of any of the squad who would want to mix it with me and Roscoe standing shoulder to shoulder.

I decided that I had to say goodbye to the lads who had been my mates for the last few years. I went round to Frankie’s café where I was ribbed right, left and centre. We drank coffee and nattered away, just as we had always done, then I stood up and shook everybody’s hands. On the way home I met Peg. I was walking back to Kenton Street through Cromer Street and there she was, standing talking with some of her friends, gently rocking a pram, like a real experienced mum. I stopped and our eyes met and the world around me went silent. I’m certain that Peg was going through the same emotions as I was. Then, in the same instant, the spell ended and in the politest possible way we said our hellos. ‘You do look nice in your uniform, Vic.’ ‘You look top of the world yourself, Peg.’ We both felt uncomfortable. I wanted more than anything to touch her hand, like in the old days. For the first time in my life I felt real guilt and I knew that I had lost something very precious. Whether she felt the same I shall never know. But we both knew the rules; you don’t mess with someone else’s girl, and anyway Peg was now married with a baby, so that was that. We had crossed a bridge and there was no going back. I was hurt but had no means of showing it. Next I went around to the restaurant in Percy Street and had a free meal with Ron and his mum and dad. They all showed genuine interest in my new career and asked me if I thought there was going to be a war. I had to admit I didn’t have a clue. ‘Your fiddle and music are still up in my room,’ said Ron. I replied, ‘You never know, Ron, you might break yours, so now you’ve got a spare.’ That was the last I saw of Ron. It was a sad goodbye to the Stéphane Grappelli duets we used to play together.

On my last night I went for a walk with Grandfather to his club in Marylebone Lane. He took me into a pub and offered me a pint, but I only had a half. I didn’t want to make an idiot of myself.

As we were supping up, my grandfather said, ‘You wouldn’t know this, Victor, but I was at Ladysmith when the Green Jackets were there. I suppose that your mob are still called Green Jackets? Take a tip from one who knows: the chief thing you need to learn now is survival. You’ve got yourself mixed up with a real death or glory lot, so watch yourself. If the Germans don’t throw this Hitler out on his ear the bloody square heads will trample over Europe same as they did last time. I don’t think you’re going to have it very easy. So mark my words, watch yourself, remember that, and go with our blessing.’

My grandfather’s words went in one ear and out of the other, but they all turned out to be true.

Next day I made my way back to my new life. I wasn’t sad any more. I was a soldier boy now and there was nothing left for me in the streets that I had once called home. I walked away from King’s Cross heading for Waterloo and the train back to the depot. My head was full of memories but I knew that my growing up was all done, all finished.

My apprenticeship was over.

Plate Section

My grandparents who took us in when Father left.

Uncles and aunts on the Hamblin side of the family. My mother is far left and my grandmother far right.

When I was six I was taken into care by the Salvation Army and placed in the Shaftesbury Home for Boys. We were fed, clothed and exercised.