Percy Smith's War Diary - Part 9

It would now be perhaps July or August 1940, there had still been no invasion, but raids from the Luftwaffe were getting rather unpleasant. It would have been during the first few days in our new location and our workshop was temporarily in a back street in Turriff. A couple of streets away, one of our coaches which was disabled needed to be towed into workshops, so the same Cpl. Mitchell, myself, a tow-rope and a 3-ton lorry were detailed to bring it round. It is very desirable, when doing this with a tow-rope, to keep the rope tight , so you try not to come to a complete stop if you can help it. There was, of course, a third driver in the coach. During the operation there was a halt sign at the end of the road so Cpl. Mitchell said “Take it slow and I’ll go to the corner. If it is all clear I’ll beckon you round” , which he did and after a difficult manoeuvre we arrived at the workshop. We had actually been watched all this time by two stout policemen who had walked behind us and were now standing in the workshop. We thought they had just come for a chat, but in a friendly way they went up to the Corporal and said “Sorry, but we’ll have to report this driver”. We had really felt quite pleased with ourselves for the way things had gone, so we thought it was their way of a joke until we suddenly realised — they weren’t joking. It seemed that however slow I must have been going, I did not actually come to a complete stop. So they took all the particulars and said “Good day”. We really couldn’t believe it, but in a couple of days a summons arrived at the office and I was to appear in court. It did in fact get rather interesting as I was told that instead of having a solicitor, I had the right to choose any Commissioned Officer in the Company to defend me in court, so I decided on the one with the loudest voice and the most overpowering personality. He was one of the few who had been with us in France so I knew him quite well. We both had to write out statements for the court and the day on which I was to appear arrived. I think I had to plead not guilty because there was no intention to break the law. Then the officer ( Capt. Stott) got up and said how I had served in France, come through Dunkirk, was a very able driver and had been especially chosen for this job. He was quite impressive and in the end the charge was dismissed. Naturally there had been a lot of swearing in the office over the whole thing. The point was that this was a time when Hitler commanded the whole coastline from the north of Norway to the Spanish border and there was a very real fear of invasion. So much for Britain at war!

In Fivie we even had a little bit of scandal as one of the corporals got a local girl into ‘trouble’ in the back of a coach. I don’t know how it was finally settled but he was soon transferred away. War casualties come in different kinds!

While still in Fivie we had a brand new Commer 3-tonner delivered which I was given charge of. This was a pleasant surprise after some of the vehicles I had driven, it was quite a beauty. Time came round for me to go on leave and the Sgt. asked me to take out a new driver in it to see how he got on. He had the largest feet I had seen and had great difficulty in putting his foot on one pedal at a time. I told the Sgt. he was unsuitable so they got someone else. A short time after I returned from leave, one of the Cpls. and I were driving back to our office. As we came round a bend, we came upon a small staff car turned over in the road with our friend with the big feet and another chap laying in the road in a very bad way. The nearest ambulance would have been miles away, even after getting to a phone, so we did our best getting them into the back of the lorry and rushed them round to the small local hospital. The Matron took one look and said ‘Take them straight to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary as quick as you can’. Sadly the passenger died soon after arrival and we never saw our friend with the big feet again.

In spite of Fivie being a quiet little village, it seemed to have had its moments as far as we were concerned. We were however soon to be on the move again, this time down south to the Edinburgh area. For a short time we were stationed in Leith Fort and although we were in proper barracks, we were glad it wasn’t too long. With the other units there, discipline was extremely straight, they didn’t seem to like us very much and the feeling was mutual. Soon we moved about a mile down the coast to the little suburb of Portabello. Our depot was one end of the town and our billet was at the other end in the back of a garage (Hendersons). Except for the fact that it was rather bleak on cold days, we were reasonably comfortable here. We had plain wooden bunks for beds and Leslie Smith and I shared one of these. It was an easy bus ride into Edinburgh and half the time the conductors never took the fare even though it was only 3 old pence (about 7 pence).

Every morning we had to parade outside the billet and then march up through the town to the workshop at the other end. There was one street corner on the way where, whatever the weather, an old gentleman with a large stick would wait for us to go by. He would wave the stick in the air and shout ‘To hell with Hitler’ and we would give him a loud cheer. It was a good start to the day and I think it was his little contribution to the was effort.

In these various locations I was sometimes given another job. The motor coaches ran on diesel and unless there was access to a filling station the diesel was delivered in 50-gallon drums. I had the job of issuing this to the vehicles as each driver came in. It required an entry in the vehicles log book (AB412) and a record kept of the amount and vehicle number. There was always a complete account kept of everything that went on and every item was subject to inspection.

While in Portabello the raids by the Luftwaffe over Britain, or the Blitz as it came to be known, was getting worse. There was a big raid on Glasgow in which our coaches were required for service, and there was also a bomb on Leith town hall, not far away from us. As the Ack-Ack guns went off, the shrapnel rattled on the roof of our billet.

It was getting towards Christmas 1940. Home leave was now fairly regular, every three months, and I couldn’t believe my luck when mine came round to 23rd December, which of course meant Christmas at home and back to duty in the New Year. Air raids were a growing problem. Apart from the danger, the trains would go very slowly and there was no telling when you would arrive when there was an ‘alert’. However, back to Portabello and I was given a new job with the impressive title of Technical Mechanical Transport Clerk, in short , a storeman for motor spares etc. it wasn’t a bad job, the only thing was, it wasn’t official so I didn’t get any extra money. I queried this and I was told it could be made official but if it was, I would most likely find myself on the next boat going overseas. This seemed a very effective way of telling a bloke to shut up. I think I can say that I tried to do my job properly in the army but I was not in it for a career. The company were a lot of good blokes and it suited me fine to stay with them as long as I could, which was until the end of the war.

They say ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’, perhaps they had this in mind when they gave me the job. Even the smallest item had a part number, a bin number and its own bin card. There was a standard amount that should be in the store wagon, if it wasn’t then it should be on order, or to use the army term — indented for. Everything that happened and everything that was issued was on an Army Form No. Spares and stores were issued on an Army form 828, signed by an NCO or higher rank. Even lavatory paper was known as Army form ‘Blank’. Any officer could walk in the store wagon and check a bin card with the stock at any time and would have a gipe if it wasn’t right.

Edinburgh was a wonderful place in which to be stationed during the war. There were so many cinemas, theatres and refreshment places of all kinds. Some of the churches would have ‘Socials’ for the Forces which were usually in the form of a ‘get together’ on a Sunday afternoon. It was all very informal, you usually found out about it from someone else who had been. It was suggested to me that there was a good one in the Methodist Central Hall in Leith, which was a short tram ride up the road, so one Sunday a couple of us went along about the middle of the afternoon. There were a number of ladies, mothers and daughters getting tea and cakes ready, in spite of the rationing, and we sat down to a very agreeable tea. They were very interested in us, as to where we came from, how long we had been in the Forces and what we did in civvy street. The last one was always difficult for me, being in the Undertaking business, so I usually said we hire out cars which was actually quite true. I don’t think at that stage I had the slightest idea that sitting at the same table was a young lady who I would know so well for the next sixty two years. It would be a couple of Sundays later that Leslie Smith said he was fed up and was rather tired of a girl he had met in Portabello, so I suggested he came up with me to Leith. This he did and he very soon became friendly with another one of the young ladies by the name of Ruth Campbell. I think the relationship between Muriel Ferguson and myself was not full speed right from the start, I think it rather grew as it were, and it looked as though it was there to stay.

With our new relationships the next move came rather more painfully, this time about thirty miles away out into the country to a little village called Gifford. There were three or four shops, a church, post office and a garage which we used as a mess room. The village was dominated very much by a large estate and mansion called Yester House, the home of the Marquis and Marchioness of Tweedale, in the stables of which we set up our workshops. The Marquis would sometimes invite the CO and some of the officers to join a shooting party which also meant that some of the lads would act as ‘Beaters’. I think that meant rustling up the undergrowth so that wildlife would come out and get shot. At other times the Marquis and his wife would be mucking about with a barrow around the place, cleaning out the pigs. They would always chat and pass the time of day in spite of their exalted rank.

Our billet was on the outskirts of the village in a row of half-finished bungalows. It was quite good compared with some of the previous billets. There was an occasional bus service to Edinburgh, about twenty miles away, but a much better service from Haddington five miles up the road, so if we wanted to stay late it was get a bus back to Haddington and walk the rest. I don’t know how we did it. At one period in mid-winter new had the most snow I had ever seen. There were snow drifts five or six feet deep and we were actually cut off from Edinburgh.

One Scottish lad coming back off leave brought a set of bagpipes back with him. This was alright except that it was a bit much practising in a very small room in the billet. The office thought it would be a good idea to have him on Church Parade down through the village on Sunday, which might have been quite impressive but for the fact that the Sergeant shouted ‘Left, Right’ out of time with the bagpipes.

It was while we were in Gifford that our motor coaches were replaced with specially built Army Troop carriers. These were not particularly comfortable but would carry about 25 — 30 chaps with full kit. At least it was a sign that the army was getting properly equipped.

By now it would be perhaps about the middle of 1942 and the relationships between Leslie Smith and Ruth Campbell and between Muriel Ferguson and myself had become quite ‘established’. We seemed to have been accepted by their families and it was getting to be quite a social round in Edinburgh, so that it was not good news when we had to move again, this time up on the northeast coast to a small fishing town called Buckie, about sixty miles north of Aberdeen.
Buckie was a pleasant, healthy place, but at the time it seemed a long way from London or Edinburgh but never far away from the smell of kippers. Our workshop and billet were now in a rather run down mansion and estate next to a farm. The billet was a large room above the estate’s laundry and we made it reasonably comfortable. Some of us soon became good friends with the people at the farm who would quite often invite one or two of us for an evening meal. Rationing by this time was getting very tight but with these people being farmers with relations in the fish business it didn’t seem to worry them very much. Also, as there were never any air raids up there the war seemed a long way away, in fact, when I went on leave, with getting to Aberdeen, then from Aberdeen to London with one or two air raid alerts on the way, then getting across London and down to Staines would take the best part of a day. Then having got home, the Blitz was at its height so it was a very different life. The strange thing was that instead of the folks at home worrying about the dangers to their men in the forces, in our case it was the other way round. One of my ‘home on leave’ was spent mostly filling sandbags and making one room in the house as near an air raid shelter as possible. For quite a long time in the South life seemed to alternate between an air raid alert and the ‘all clear’.

While we were at Buckie our friends Ruth and Leslie decided to get married, the date was 4th July,1942, his leave was due just before. It was the custom in that part of the world for the bridegroom to throw a stag party and afterwards his boots were taken off, his feet were blackened and he was carried round the town. After the stag party Leslie passed out so we didn’t get the other half, however the wedding went off according to plan and with a safe return I think they ‘lived happily ever after’.

Once coming on leave, I came out of Staines station and the first thing I saw was a building that had been bombed and as I walked along the road, about a couple of hundred yards, a house had been bombed. Knowing how a ‘stick of bombs’ could work, I was scared to think where a third bomb might have dropped, so it was a great relief to find home quite safe. On the way, I do remember seeing a fruit tree in a garden that was completely bare — a bomb had blown every leaf and piece of fruit off. It looked rather strange in high summer.

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