Percy Smith's War Diary - Part 14

I think by now it would have been about September or October 1945. On my return to London next day I was given instructions to report to the Barrack Office at Hounslow Barracks for duty. This was to be my last job in the army and it gave me a ‘sleeping out’ pass so that it was more like a civvy job- going to work each day and of course there were no guard duties, which was a blessed relief.

Somewhere about this time and I have forgotten where, along with five others, we had to report to an M.O.’s office for a ‘Medical’. So we paraded in the office at the stated time wondering how thorough it was all going to be. After some time the M.O. came in, looked us up and down and said “Do you blokes feel all right?” We said “Yes Sir” , he said “Right, bugger off then”. That was our thorough examination.

Strange as it may seem, the Barracks Office was a small set up with about four or five civvy clerks, who wrote letters to various departments in long hand and gave them to me to type. I was never busy even though I only type with two fingers. In fact, once I was settled in, I took a folder with me to work and in my spare time made out some of Dads’ funeral accounts. It as really a job to keep me occupied until my demob number came up, but they were a decent lot, mostly ex-army, and it was an agreeable job during the cold winter. It must have been during the early part of this period that Muriel packed all her belongings and our wedding presents and came south to Staines. Of course we had no house of our own so it was a case of living with my parents and the business at Richmond Road. It was to be sometime before we had a place of our own.

I could never see the point of my job at Hounslow Barracks. The clerks wrote in perfectly good hand, they could have used carbon paper for copy. My job really seemed a waste of time.

Christmas and New Year 1945, there was of course no trouble in getting leave. Muriel and I spent Christmas in Staines and New Year was spent of course in Edinburgh.

With good reason this story must go back to the time when I first joined the Army in the ‘Militia’. Our pay was one shilling and sixpence a day (in the old money — 240 pence to the pound). This worked out at ten shillings and sixpence per week, but after the first week they stopped the odd sixpence and nine weeks went by until war was declared then we came on war pay. We never really knew the reason for this. Anyway, six years of war went by and one January morning in 1946 a letter came for me with a postal order inside for four shillings and sixpence as army ‘back pay’. In those days it was just enough for Muriel and I to go to the cinema!

Round about the same time another letter arrived informing me that I was due for demob’. I had to report to Wellington Barracks in London one morning for some sort of checking and documentation. Of course there were hundreds of other chaps as well and a lot of hanging about. When they had finished with us there, we were taken in lorries to Chelsea Hospital where the Chelsea Pensioners stay. I think some of us had a feeling that the old boys were looking us up and down with a rather critical eye suggesting — They don’t make ‘em like they did in our day. Anyway, after a few brief formalities, here we got our Army forms X 202/A Release Leave Certificates, in short, our demobilisation papers. We left the hospital once again in army lorries, there was a Sgt. Major at the gate, someone shouted ‘God bless you, Sgt. Major!!’

We still had one more visit to make. This was to Olympia, which at that time had been taken over by the Army for the issue of civilian clothing to troops leaving the army. It was like a huge department store with the difference that everything was signed for, instead of paying. Each one had a suit, underwear, shirt and a tie. You were allowed to keep your uniform. Naturally the last moments I remember very well, before which I would say that it had become well known that some of the staff in these places were ‘flogging’ some of the clothing for their own gain. The last point of issue was with shoes which I was soon supplied with. The door into the street was about two yards away beyond which the afternoon sun was brightly shining. The chap with the shoes said “You can have another pair for a pound”. I took another look at the door and said “No, mate, you keep them” and so, on the 25th January,1946, after six years, six months and nine days, and grateful for a safe return — I said goodbye to the Army!!!

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During all those years away, hoping and wishing to be at home, and that someone might shoot Hitler, I think each one of us occasionally wondered what the day would really be like when we could go home for good. I therefore found it rather curious that I had got so used to taking orders and not being entirely responsible for everything around, that civilian life, marvellous though it was, was going to take a day or two to get used to, but at least you could put your hands in your pockets without getting shouted at and there was no more guard duty and losing a night’s rest twice a week.

Muriel and I took a couple of weeks off and went to Edinburgh and then came back to start work in the business. I had not been back a week when starting up one of the cars in the garage, which in those days required a starting handle if it had a flat battery, the handle ‘kicked back’, broke my arm and I was in hospital for a week. I took a poor view of this after years of war without a scratch!!

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