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Mémoire - Fusilier Ted BLOWERS

 

Royal Fusiliers, City of London Regiment

 

 

AAS Arborfield – Permanent Staff

 

                       

(above) Ted BLOWERS  – 1953

 

              

(above, left) 'Taff' STEVENS and Bill WARREN; (right) Tin OHN

 

1955 - Passing Out Parade

 

(refer to key photo below) 1 - Bob ROBERTS; 2 - Taff POWELL; 3 - Alan GORDON; 4 - PUGH [deceased]; 5 - Ohn THWIN;

6 - Myint SHWE; 7 - 'Blondie' HILTON; 8 - Tin OHN; 9 - Brian PATON; 10 - George PEACOCK; 11 - Joe PLANT;

12 - John TODD; 13 - Aung Mein THYNE; 14 - Kenny BYFORD; 15 - Frank BASS; 16 - n/k; 17 - n/k; 18 - Tha WIN

 

Key Photo

 

 

From February/March 1953 until my demob in 1955 I was in 'C' Company at AAS Arborfield. Major Westropp was Company Commander, and WO2 'Taffy' Hill, Welsh Guards, was CSM. I was well known to the other members of the Permanent Staff of course, and I am still in touch with one of the old cooks; he was an Army Catering Corps cook at AAS and stayed on as a civvy after his demob. Those of us on the Staff, although our roles were different, saw things from another perspective. But our lives were very much intertwined with those of the Apprentices, under the jurisdiction of the same Officers and NCOs we suffered the same indignities in one way or another, and I did more time inside or on jankers than anyone else there, due I may add, to no fault of mine.

 

I had several jobs while at the School:

  • The Officers Mess, where we only saw janker wallahs.
  • The main cookhouse as cook for a while. 'Old Boys' don't always remember me, which is good for the ego. I used to see them three times a day and was a dab hand at directing hot mashed potato on to the thumb of those that gave lip. You remember these little things even if it never happened to you. In the cookhouse I had access to left-over bits of cake etc. that I used to give to my mate Tin Ohn, a Burmese chap; there was a barrack room full of hungry guys and I used to pack quite a bit to them in the end.
  • Unpaid, unwanted weapon training Instructor.
  • Square bashing Instructor - which didn't last long because RSM McNally hated me.
  • Member of the Regimental Police for a short while. Yes, the irony of it escapes me too, as I didn't conform. I was a good and fair RP when I was on duty; but when I was off duty I turned a blind eye. That didn't suit Provost Sergeant Fred Silvers of course, or perhaps it was RSM McNally who hated seeing me standing on the Guardroom verandah when he arrived in the morning. However, the crunch came at a dance to which I had invited my girl - I was on duty. The girls were brought from Wokingham by bus, and just before the dance ended I was despatched to make sure the girls got on the bus and that none of the Boys kissed their girl goodnight.  At the end of the dance while the Boys were saying goodnight to their girls I promptly picked up my girl, got on the bus and was saying goodnight to her when Fred Silvers arrived, running about screaming: "Get on the bus!" and "Blowers!" and "Get on the bus!". He was going frantic. Eventually of course he stuck his head into the bus and saw me - that was the end of another illustrious career.
  • I spent the last six months in a wonderful job as runner to the Adjutant, Major Ian MacHorton, a great bloke.

 

I well remember the Arborfield versus Aldershot boxing competitions held in the gym. I was a good friend of Tin Ohn who boxed for 'A' Company - Mickey Stockwell (who went on to become a PTI) and I used to help Tin Ohn with his training, and on the night of the fights we were supposed to be in his corner. Provost Sergeant Fred Silvers however had other ideas, and insisted on being there instead. When the PTIs came to the ring to assist in the corners they deftly grabbed the top rope and vaulted into the ring. Silvers arrived dressed in a polo neck jumper and white trousers, he grabbed the top rope, caught his foot as he vaulted over it, and went crashing down, bloody nearly cutting off the top of his ear on the edge of the ring. The roar from the Boys and Staff was unforgettable; they couldn't stop the cheering for some time and the fights were delayed. The icing on the cake was that Silvers was taken to the Medical Reception Station at the rear entrance to the Camp where my mate Jock Anderson just happened to be the cook. We had a little chat, and Silvers nearly starved to death - he was in there for a week and never got a full meal. He tried unsuccessfully to nick Jock but the MRS came under Aldershot over which he had no jurisdiction.

 

Fred Silvers on another occasion decided that the Cookhouse Staff had to be trained in the correct use and maintenance of fire extinguishers. We assembled outside the back door while Fred demonstrated how to recharge a fire extinguisher, then how to set it off in an emergency. He of course just went through the motions making sure that it didn't bang on the ground - if my memory serves me right that was how it was activated. Anyway, he passed it to a cook who was a bit of a nut, who promptly smacked it on the floor and sprayed Fred Silvers from top to toe. We dived in all directions and got very little on ourselves; in fact I hardly think the act was a random one!

 

On the occasion of an important parade - it could have been a Passing Out parade - the inspecting officer arrived by helicopter. All the lads and bands were on parade, bulled up to the nines, and this idiot lands in the middle of the Square raising a cloud of dust about ten feet high that spread in every direction. I was watching from the cookhouse and remember feeling sorry for the lads because I knew how much work had been put into getting ready.

 

I well remember an incident that featured Paddy Clayton who was on jankers. I was the RP on duty and gave him my belt and gaiters to clean. He took them away and was back in five minutes. I said: "I thought I told you to clean my equipment". "I did, Staff" he said. "Where is it?" I asked. "Drying on the table" says he. I knew full well that he hadn't had time to clean it properly so I went and inspected it minutely. I couldn't fault it, but I knew he hadn't done it, so I called him into the office and said: "OK, I promise that whatever you tell me won't result in a charge or any kind of retribution. I know that you haven't cleaned my stuff and I just want to know what you did". He argued for a while, then said: "I put them down the bog and flushed it, then dried the brasses and straps". It was all I could do not to laugh; he was a man after my own heart, that's just what I would have done. I gave him the customary bollicking and sent him on his way.

 

On one occasion I was watching the School Band marching in Wokingham - I don't know now if it was in a carnival or a prior rehearsal - and in the lead came (Drum Major) Lofty Grounsel twirling the mace and looking good. Just as the Band was marching past the Town Hall he threw the mace and unfortunately it got caught up on some flags strung across the road. Lofty was busy marking time, casting quick glances over his shoulder, then marched up to the mace gaily swinging in the breeze. The band got ever closer and it fell just in time for him to catch it, but in doing so I think it did some damage either to his glove or his thumb, and maybe his ego too. I wonder if he remembers that?

 

I recall an incident involving one of RSM McNally's daughters. The RSM had this 'thing' about me - when I was on jankers he wouldn't even have me at his house to do the garden. On one occasion my mate Tin Ohn had swapped civvy shirts with me, don't ask me why, but we did borrow each other's clothes at various times. The particular shirt I was left with was 'Western' style, with frills across the chest and down the sleeves I think. I arrived at the Guardroom and who should be there but McNally. "What do you think you look like?" he asked. "You're not going out like that! Who d'you think you are - Tom Mix?" I tried to point out to him that I wasn't an Apprentice, I was clean and tidy and in civvies, so I could wear what I liked. He then called out and one of his daughters, probably the elder one, emerged from the Guardroom. McNally said to her: "Look at him! What do you think he looks like?" She looked, then said: "He looks very smart. Why, what's wrong?" Tara spluttered something about cowboys but his daughter just said: "Oh! Don't be so old fashioned Daddy, he looks very nice". With that she went back into the Guardroom. He told me to 'sling my hook' - I was grateful to her, and the look on his face kept me in grins for a week.

 

‘The shirt’

 

One night I was duty RP with Corporal Dutton, the duty NCO, whose lack of intellectual ability was not lost on either the Staff, or Boys on jankers. The infamous Paddy Clayton was amongst the janker wallahs. While Dutton called the roll and assigned the fatigues I went into the Guardroom to find Paddy sitting on one of the beds with his hand bandaged and arm in a sling. I asked Dutton: "What's Clayton's problem?" "Oh," he replied, "a tappet clearance dropped on his hand." I went and got the bumper and gave it to Paddy who just grinned and started to bump the floor.

 

Another Paddy Clayton and Corporal Dutton incident occurred one night when Clayton was in the nick. Provost Sergeant Silvers, a big Welsh Corporal whose name I think was Davies, and I were present. "Go check on the prisoners" says Silvers to Dutton. Off goes Dutton. There's a holler and Dutton returns saying that Clayton had spat in his eye when he looked through the peephole in the cell door. Dutton was ranting and raging: "I'll kill him! I'll kill him!" etc. Davies handed me the keys and said to Dutton: "Go with Ted, he will open the cell and let you in and make sure no one interferes. Then you can sort Clayton out." Dutton went white and declined the offer - even Fred Silvers grinned at his lack of enthusiasm.

 

The following morning I was fortunate enough to be one of the escorts taking Clayton in front of the CO Colonel Magee. The story Clayton told, though it never saved him, deserves to be recorded in the School's book of fame. "Well Sir, there I was Sir, just having washed the floor Sir, and having me kit Sir all laid out Sir, when all of a sudden I coughs Sir and there I am with a lump of phlegm Sir and nowhere to spit it out Sir, so I went to spit it through the hole Sir. How did I know he would be spying on me?"

 

 

Life with Fred

 

Fred Silvers the Provost Sergeant either had a passion for gardening or a fiddle going on. He was involved with retired Brigadier Rice in the growing of plants, which we believed they sold somewhere. During the day they were carefully nurtured by the janker wallahs under Fred's watchful eye, and by the fire piquet when night descended.  This consisted of checking the temperature, opening and closing vents, watering etc, and in the winter the boiler had to be kept stoked. One really cold night, after Fred had been extra horrible, the fire piquet put insufficient coke on the fire and unfortunately left the boiler-room door open when he left. The fire went out - total devastation! Fred's roars next morning were music to our ears. The beauty was, apart from ranting and raving, there was nothing he could do. He never knew who had done it and it was a private project that he probably never wanted advertised.

 

Remember the big wooden flower boxes that Fred used to have carried out from the guardroom every morning that used to stand outside full of his prize Geraniums? They were his pride and joy. One day Gunner Mick Stockwell and I were on jankers and Fred had said something that upset Mick. Everyone had gone to lunch and we had to report to the guardroom as soon as we had finished eating. Silvers hadn’t arrived back yet, and as we enjoyed our little time of freedom and sunshine Mick suddenly spied the Geraniums and lashed out with his boot, snapping the stems of about five or six of them. It seemed quite funny at the time so he did a few more and it then dawned on us that we would have to pay for this, so brains were engaged and I remembered that sticking the heads on toy soldiers with matches worked. Guess what! It works with Geraniums too. We stuck a matchstick up the centre of the stem, watered the hell out of them, and they held out until after supper. They were back in the guardroom when Fred came down for his evening check - walked in and saw his precious Geraniums wilting before his eyes. "Look at me Germainiums!" he cried "Look at me Germainiums!" He always pronounced Geraniums Germainiums and Gymnasium Gymnasshum, with that nasal twang of his. It didn't take long to find the matchsticks, but there had been people in and out all day and despite repeated questioning, threats, verbal abuse, and his suspicions there was no proof. Another victory for the oppressed.

 

 

Fire Piquets

 

One night whilst I was on fire piquet there occurred the great escape of Gunner Parish. Parish was a mystery to us; he was a nice chap, certainly not a hard case, and had an unblemished record. From the day he arrived all he wanted was to be posted back to his Unit and followed every legitimate means he could to achieve that. When that failed he kept getting into trouble. On this occasion he was in the cells - it must have been hot in the guardroom, as some of the windows were open. The fire piquet, bugle boys, and others that had duty that night were lying on their beds. It could well have been early morning. Our intellectually challenged Corporal Dutton went to the cells to get Parrish for his wash and shave and on the return journey Dutton led the way, [real Military intelligence working here]. As Dutton proceeded to the cells Parrish made a sharp right turn, stepped on the bed of a sleeping bugler, out of the open window and is gone. Dutton came back into the room from the cells and said: "Where’s Parrish?" "He was here a minute ago" we chorused "but he’s gone now". It still took a little time for Dutton to realise that he had actually let a prisoner escape. Parrish was free for some time and I believe was sent back to his unit after he did his time.

 

Another Interesting fire piquet was when there had been a party at the Sergeants Mess and Sergeant Major Patey had been given a cell because he was to drunk to get home. During the night he had got up to go to the bathroom, still drunk, and one of the lads woke up to find him peeing up against the radiator by his bed. Quite a commotion ensued with the Orderly Officer but no apology was forthcoming.

 

The classic guardroom incident had to be the big sleep. Fire piquet consisted of three men that I believe did it three hours on and two off, which meant the chap that drew middle shift got next to no sleep. On this occasion there was Tom Cobbett, me, and I can't remember the last man. Tommy suggested that we should draw cards and the guy that drew the lowest card should do all three shifts, Tom as luck would have it drew the lowest card so he was stuck, we told the Orderly Sergeant what we had agreed and he, being a nice REME chap, said he didn't care, but that the chap patrolling must report at the end of each shift. The books were signed with me on first, Tom second, and the other chap last. I went to sleep only to be awakened by 'Jock' Ramsey running around shouting. Tom had tucked himself up somewhere and gone to sleep, and so had the Orderly Sergeant. There had been no early calls to the buglers, the R.S.M., and the cooks - it was chaos. Everything that day was late and once again we escaped punishment because the poor Orderly Sergeant had also slept in - I bet he got it in the neck. Unfortunately it was the end of our private, one-man-does-it-all scheme.

 

 

Crack From The Cookhouse

 

When the cookhouse was first blessed with my skills, the undisputed king was Cook Sergeant Vigor, and under him Corporal Jack Snow, neither of whom went out of their way to make life a misery. They were in charge of an assortment of civilian cooks, a few squaddies like myself, and any janker wallas on cookhouse fatigues. The excellent food ingredients supplied for preparation took major work to turn them into what was dished up. The cooks also ate this fare and, as you can imagine, they took the best for themselves, hiding their spoils in the hot plate prior to serving it up the rest to the Apprentices. It became quite a game among the squaddies to try to steal the cooks’ best dinner and replace it with their own meagre fare.

 

This also applied to the tea. The cooks’ tea, unlike the Apprentices’ tea that was brewed using the big steamers tasting of cabbage that was cooked in them, was made with lashings of sugar, a couple of tins of carnation milk, and enough tea to give it that lovely creamy brown look. A mug of this special nectar, left unattended for a second, would disappear. The mug, if distinctive, would miraculously reappear where it had departed from, minus the tea of course. This practice escalated to such a degree that Sergeant Vigor resorted to basic instincts to solve the problem, and the victim in both cases was my mate Tom Cobbett. On the first occasion Tom grabbed a mug of unattended tea and, with a furtive look, he took a huge swig. I watched his face change from pleasure to panic as he put the mug down. We both looked and there, residing in the half-drunk tea, were Sergeant Vigor’s false teeth. What made it even more revolting was that they were of the old black vulcanised type. That put an end to the tea swiping. On the next occasion about a week later, Tom reached into the back of the hot plate to emerge triumphant with someone's dinner, only to find Sergeant Vigor’s false teeth buried in the mashed potato. To this day I still drink my tea out of a cup.

 

One day I was given the job of making the mashed potatoes. I loved good mashed spud and I thought the Boys would also enjoy decent mashed devoid of lumps, so I put in extra milk and butter and worked and worked with the masher until I produced mashed potatoes that were fit for any table in the land. Imagine my horror when large numbers of Boys refused to eat them saying, despite my protests to the contrary, that they were ‘Pom’ - the ‘instant’ muck that set like glue. Those who ate them came back for seconds and thirds, and I got reamed out twice - once for taking so long to prepare them, and once for creating so much waste, which was untrue as most likely it was used at a later date in fish cakes.

 

It goes with out saying that food and smoking do not go together, particularly when you are the cook. Just about everyone smoked in those days and it was the unwritten rule that you did not smoke while mixing any kind of food. One day a lad brought back a portion of partially eaten plum duff and asked to see the Cook Sergeant. “What's up?” I asked. “That.” he says, pointing to a little discoloured bit of duff sticking up on one corner. Jock McCabe, one of the civvy cooks, came and looked and said: “Oh it’s only a burnt currant.” and went to flick it off, but instead the black bit came off displaying strands of tobacco underneath. By that time the Cook Sergeant had arrived to see what the commotion was about. There were offers of more pud, and expressions of amazement at how it could have possibly got there - it must have been in the currants; it must have blown in from outside when the door was open; and given enough time it would have been the lad’s fault for having pudding in the first place. Anyway, the Orderly Officer wasn’t called and when the lad had gone, a minute inspection of the offending fag end established that it was a roll-your-own, owned and distributed for free by old Tom Warren who rolled his own and had mixed the duff. We all got a right rollicking and from then on ‘no smoking when mixing’ was strictly enforced.

 

After I left the kitchen, had taken and passed the cadre course, refused the promotion which would have meant a posting, been a Regimental Policeman, an unpaid unwanted drill-come-weapon training Instructor, finally, when they didn't know what to do with me, I was sent for by the Adjutant who asked if I would like to be his runner. “What do I have to do?” I asked. “Whatever I bloody well tell you.” said he (in retrospect, it was a stupid question). An important part of my duties was to provide the tea for HQ - that meant they had to drink tea the way I liked it. For the first time in their lives they had tea that was like nectar - after all, I was an expert. I used to take the bucket, waltz down to the cookhouse, into the larder, and help myself to enough tea, milk, and sugar to make a divine brew. After a few days they had become addicted to my tea, and the Adjutant and I got on very well. Following Sergeant Vigor’s replacement with the more officious Sergeant Clackworthy, the inevitable happened. Just as I walked into the larder he yelled at me to get out. “What do you think you’re doing?” he shouted (I found out that in the Army you often had to describe to people in authority what you were doing, they never seemed to be able to work it out for themselves). “I’m making the Adjutant's tea” said I. “Oh, no you’re not” he said, “you get your tea out of the vat like everyone else” (poor soul, I think I’ll give him a clue). “But it’s for the Adjutant and the Colonel” said I. “They are no different to anyone else” said he (well, he is confused I think). “Get your tea out of the vat.” “I’m not taking them that” said I. Then the masterstroke: “Are you going to let me make the Adjutant’s tea?” I asked. “No!” he roared “get it out of the vat.” I returned to HQ and waited in my office, and about half-an-hour later the bell rang, summoning me to the Adjutant’s office. “Where’s the tea, Blowers?” said he. “Oh, Sergeant Clackworthy said I couldn't make you any” I replied. The adjutant was still reaching for the phone as I left to pick up the bucket and was on my way to make the tea before he had finished. I don't know what he said, but I know that Sergeant Clackworthy found out there is a difference.

 

 

2002

 

Ted BLOWERS