The Junak King: Life as a British POW, 1941-45

By Sydney Litherland

Sydney Litherland, at the age of 20, was called up in February 1940. After having been evacuated from Greece, he was among the 30,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers taken prisoner by the Germans at the fall of Crete in June 1941. This book documents in fascinating and historically important detail their daily life as POWs in Germany and encapsulates the experiences of tens of thousands of ordinary POWs. The German airborne invasion of Crete and the surrender by the British is still the subject of controversy. Sydney gives here his own first-hand account of the event.This is not an account of heroic escapes and derring-do by dashing officers, but of the day-to-day endurance of the other ranks, mostly very young men, separated from their officers and expected to do hard manual labour in working camps. What is revealed is a different kind of courage: a quiet resilience and dogged determination not just to endure, but to triumph. Supporting each other, they never lose hope of eventual victory or let an opportunity slip to make life more difficult for their captors. This is an enthralling record of their triumphs and tragedies over four long years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Mar 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9780750956895

Book preview

Litherland.

1

Prelude

Iwas born in 1919, the second youngest of six. My two brothers were some fourteen years older than me, born before the First World War. My father died at the early age of fifty-three on 11 August 1937 when I was nearly eighteen. I had been educated at Burton Grammar School and had just left, having taken my Higher School Certificate in zoology, botany and chemistry without much success because of a mix-up in my sixth-form education. I had wished originally to go to university to study marine biology, but father announced, quite out of the blue, that he was negotiating a pupilage for me with a Burton firm of solicitors, Messrs Talbot, Stein and Evershed, a well-regarded local practice whose senior partner became Master of the Rolls as Lord Evershed. My father was also the honorary umpire for the Burton Cricket Club of which the Eversheds were prominent members and players.

I discussed the pupilage with my form master who advised me that scientific subjects would be of little use, so he proposed I should switch instead to Roman history, English and maths. Two terms later, father was informed that these solicitors no longer had a vacancy for a pupil. I switched back to zoology, botany and chemistry with subsidiary English, again with the aim of going to university. However, those missed terms meant I did not do particularly well in my Higher School Certificate. I was still sixteen at the time, so there would have been plenty of time to retake it – in fact I could have done another two years and still been in the usual age group for the Higher School Certificate. However, I had become disillusioned and had made up my mind to quit school. Looking back, I realise that I got little or no advice on my future career either from school or from my family. One very left-wing master, Charlie Brown, said my future was as a Labour Member of Parliament. He was one of two masters who used to heckle my father when he spoke at Conservative political meetings.

I saw an advertisement for an assistant at the local opticians who had their shop in the High Street near father’s office. Without telling my family, I applied for the post, was interviewed and offered the position. This put me in a quandary as I did not really want to work there and had only applied in reaction to my disappointment with my Higher School Certificate results. It was not that I was unhappy with school life – I even went to voluntary sessions on Saturday mornings. I decided to turn down the offer and, on the spur of the moment, I went to father’s office at 10 High Street in Burton and announced I was leaving school and was coming to join him in the architectural practice. Father seemed very pleased. At the time he was very busy and, perhaps, welcomed an extra hand.

My first weeks were spent practising lettering for architectural drawings as my father insisted that all lettering on plans should be clearly legible. I found the work at the office alternately interesting and tedious. The hours spent checking specifications and bills of quantity which had to be absolutely correct in every detail were very boring. The more interesting part was helping to supervise building works in progress: checking on the builders, the number of men working, the weather, testing samples of concrete, mortar mixes and so on. My father was a strict disciplinarian who expected builders to stick to the terms of their contracts. We were all very much in awe of him as he was such a strong character, but he could also be very kind and considerate.

My elder brother Dick worked in the practice. A few years earlier he had privately designed a house for a friend of his, without telling my father. He said he had done it to get some pocket money. When father found out he was livid. He told Dick that the business was a family one in which all commissions were to be shared, that what he had done was underhand and deceitful, and immediately threw him out of the office. This was during the 1930s depression when jobs were very difficult to find and Dick spent several months looking for work without success. Sometime later, when I was with father on my way to school, we came across Dick walking towards the railway station. My father stopped the car and asked where he was going. ‘To Derby to look for a job,’ came the reply. ‘Jump in’, said father, ‘I think you’ve learned your lesson, come back to work.’ It had been a hard lesson.

My father in a relatively short life had become very successful. He had started as a junior apprentice in an architectural practice. By working hard, he qualified as a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) eventually taking over the firm he had joined as a school leaver. The firm prospered under his leadership. He was exceptionally politically and civic-minded, becoming a county councillor for Staffordshire and a Justice of the Peace. The law courts in Burton and the war memorial are examples of his skills as an architect and also serve as a memorial to him. In politics he was a Unionist (now Conservative), a prominent aide to Colonel John Gretton (later Lord Gretton) the Member of Parliament for Burton-on-Trent. In my idealistic youth, I thought they spoke a lot of nonsense on the hustings; now I am not so sure!

My world was shattered by my father’s early death in 1937 and my future appeared to be in limbo. My brother Dick took over the practice. One day soon afterwards I overheard my second brother Charles, who was paying a visit to the office, discussing my future prospects with Frank Johnson. Frank was the son of a close cricketing friend of father. He was a paid assistant and studying for his architectural diploma whilst I only got pocket money. Charles said, ‘What do we do with the youngster, has he any future in architecture?’ To which Frank replied that, if I worked hard, I could probably qualify as an architect by the time I was twenty-six or twenty-seven. I thought they were pretty condescending and was annoyed. I decided I would show them by qualifying by the time I was twenty-one. Looking back, I realise Charles had a genuine concern for my future, but at the time I was just cross. I enrolled for a correspondence course for the RIBA Intermediate Examination with Prof. L. Stuart Stanley of the Bartlett School of Architecture, London University and worked very hard.

After Father died, it was decided (presumably by elder brother Dick in consultation with mother) that Barton House, our home, should be sold as it was now too big for mother, younger sister Ruth and me. Instead, we would build a new smaller house on part of our land which was designed by Dick and me. I did the layout and planning while he designed the elevations and details. Whilst it was being built, Mother, Ruth and I, plus Zilpah our maid, moved into a rented house. By this time, both of my elder brothers had long married and departed the family nest. Then Betty had married and left home and Mary, the one next to me, had taken a course in hotel management and left to be a hotel receptionist in Leamington Spa. The new house was duly finished and provided a comfortable home for Mother until her death in 1946.

My father had had a subscription to the Intelligence Digest, a review of international affairs. It was anti-fascist, detailing the spread of Falangism in Spain, Fascism in Italy and National Socialism in Germany. For the first time I read how the Germans and Italians were using their aid to General Franco during the Spanish Civil War to test their aircraft and other military equipment in preparation for their planned aggressions. I also learned that the Soviet Union were doing much the same thing in their assistance to the Republicans in Spain. Like many others in England, I became more and more concerned about the aggressive activities of Hitler’s regime in Germany, where he had been freely elected as chancellor. I learned much more about what was going on in Europe from the Intelligence Digest than the national newspapers. The daily paper we took was the Morning Post (later taken over by the Daily Telegraph). I suppose that living in a country town made us somewhat parochial in our outlook, somewhat detached from world affairs; we rarely left the Burton area except for our annual holidays at the seaside.

I felt strongly that the government should be doing something to halt Germany and Italy. First there was the blatant occupation of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) by the Italians under Mussolini and the fiasco of the inept efforts of the League of Nations to take any effective action against it. I thought the league was quite hopeless, as did many others. The German reoccupation of the Ruhr followed, unopposed by the French. Germany was also increasing the size of its navy in contravention of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1938 Germany succeeding in annexing Austria into Greater Germany following the Anschluss; Bohemia came next.

Even in Burton – hardly a hub of world affairs – many felt that both Britain and France needed to act to stop the Axis Powers of Germany and Italy. I wrote to Col. John Gretton, our MP, to express my concerns. He was a member of the House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee and had been a close friend of my father. He replied, assuring me that the government (then under the premiership of Neville Chamberlain, who had succeeded Stanley Baldwin in 1937) was equally concerned with the gravity of the situation, but that after the disastrous period of disarmament brokered by the League of Nations, it was necessary for the country to build up our armed forces, armaments industry and improve our defensive capabilities again, before we could be in a position to take any effective counter-action. It seemed ironic to me that Hitler was also building up his armaments industry, enlarging his army, navy and air force and most probably at a faster rate than we could achieve at the time, as he had had a good start on us. At this time, the United States of America was pursuing isolationist policies and was not very interested in our problems. Indeed, their ambassador in London, Joseph Kennedy (father of the later President Kennedy), was clearly anti-British and expressed the opinion later on that we would lose the war.

As the months of 1938 and 1939 passed, the clouds of war grew thicker and so did the desire of my school friends and young people in general to join the coming fight against Hitler and Mussolini. These volunteers were at first part-time, but ready to be called up permanently when required. Most of us wanted to join the Royal Air Force and become pilots and some of my friends succeeded. I was turned down because of my shortsightedness. The Royal Navy, my second choice, did not want me for the same reason, except as a pen-pusher on land, which I did not relish. I was still determined to play my part. Frank Johnson had joined an anti-aircraft unit of the Royal Artillery. I decided to volunteer for the same unit. I went to the recruiting office and volunteered, signed on, took the oath of loyalty and prepared to join the unit.

When I arrived at the camp, the CO (commanding officer) seemed a little concerned. It turned out he was a friend of my brother Dick with whom he had discussed my enlistment. I was called to his office and told that, as I was planning to take my RIBA Intermediate Exams in November 1939, I would be well advised to take them. If I passed, I would be useful to the Royal Engineers. He then tore up my enlistment papers and told me to go back home and resume my studies, which I did with renewed zeal.

During this ‘waiting period’, we had some interesting commissions in the office. We surveyed country mansions taken over by the Army as training camps and gleaned some idea of Army life from the regular units who ran them. We also did a survey of a factory in Derbyshire which manufactured ‘patent plaster’ from gypsum obtained from adjacent mines which went horizontally into the hills. The factory was haphazard in the extreme; the buildings, caked in white dust, were tropically hot in the furnace rooms, so that the conditions for the workmen were pretty torrid. We battled away to measure it all and set our survey on paper, producing the only record of the factory layout, its buildings and the entrances to the mines. During the war these mines were used as ammunition dumps for the RAF and a massive explosion did immense damage with considerable loss of life. After the war, I was told that our plan was the only record of the site and proved of great value in the rescue work.

The international situation worsened month by month. Hitler famously told Chamberlain, ‘I have no more territorial claims in Europe.’ Chamberlain returned from a meeting with Hitler in Munich, stepped from the plane waving his umbrella and said, ‘Peace in our time.’ How wrong he was. Hitler then turned his attention to Poland. First it was over access to Danzig (now Gdynia) which had once been part of Prussia. Having signed a mutual non-aggression pact with Stalin, he ordered German forces to invade Poland on 1 September 1939, whilst the Russians occupied, ‘temporarily’, the eastern half. Chamberlain issued final ultimatums to Hitler which were ignored and so, on the morning of Sunday 3 September, we were at war.

Although we had all been expecting it, the actual declaration confused us ordinary people: we did not know quite how we ought to react. At first I think we felt we should all stay at home and wait for something concrete to happen or to be told what to do and that some major changes to our life would quickly unfold. The first confirmation that things were different was the trial sounding of air-raid warnings followed some minutes later by the ‘all-clear’ sounding. Very quickly we realised there would be no immediate changes to the flow of our daily lives. On that fateful afternoon I announced to the family that I intended to go out to play tennis in order to show some sign of normality.

Indeed, we quickly resumed our normal routines: going to the office, playing tennis at the weekends and badminton some evenings.

There were some indications of change: Anderson Air Raid Shelters were made available, issued in packs containing sheets of corrugated iron. A hole had to be dug, so that about two-thirds of the sheets when fitted together were underground. Then earth was heaped over the curved corrugated roof and entrance steps made to the door at one end. Inside a wooden bench ran along one side and lighting was provided by electric torches or paraffin lamps. I never had to use the shelter and doubt if my family ever did; many people used them as a convenient tool store. The shelters were named after Sir John Anderson, the then home secretary. Gas masks were issued in cardboard boxes about 8in by 7in by 6in, with string to hang them round our shoulders; we were required to carry them at all times but we never, thankfully, needed to use them.

The main inconvenience for households was the order to black out all windows at night. Covers for windows were made of thick black material and put up at dusk each evening. Air raid wardens were appointed, part of whose duties was to patrol their area and see that there were no chinks of light showing. There were some air raids on industrial towns and cities; none of this remotely affected Barton-under-Needwood or Burton during these early days of the twilight war (as Churchill later called it). Cars were not allowed to use their headlights, which were fitted with light metal covers that had a horizontal hooded slit about one inch wide across the light. They made driving at night very difficult and slow.

In April 1939 the Conservative government had introduced conscription for twenty-year-olds, although it was opposed by both the Labour and the Liberal parties. Most of my contemporaries at school had volunteered for the Royal Air Force and gradually the remainder of us were called up for service; even so, the process of call-up was slow. I was one of those who awaited my call; I was twenty that September. In the meantime, life went on quite smoothly. We had a number of dances at Barton village hall to which many friends from Burton came. Now a number of them were in RAF uniform; often we would nip out to the pub nearby, the Bell. One of these was Geoff Hall, the only surviving school friend I met after the war. Most of my closest friends were killed. In November 1939 I was called to London to sit for my RIBA Intermediate Examination held at 66 Portland Place. I had previously submitted my testimonies of study, all of which had been approved. This was only my second visit to London, the earlier one being a school trip to see St Paul’s Cathedral. On this occasion, I stayed at St John’s Wood with Arthur and Muriel Page. Muriel was the sister of Zilpah our maid and a much nicer person. I confess I was rather apprehensive at being on my own in this huge metropolis. I had little difficulty with the various written papers, but became somewhat nervous when it came to the oral exams. I got into a mild argument with the examiner in structural design. The question had been to calculate the size of beams required to support a water tank. The diagram showed the tank eccentrically placed, so I took this into account; the examiner said this was not necessary – it was not a trick question. I insisted I was right and I must have convinced him as I passed.

The most interesting interview was with Prof. Allen of Leeds University. I arrived at his table just before lunch to be questioned on my paper on the history of architecture. One question had asked for a cross-section drawing of one of Wren’s churches and I had chosen St Stephen Walbrook. He told me that only two students had chosen this example, one had got it right and the other wrong, but he could not remember which was which as he did not have our papers with him: they had been posted to London but had not yet arrived. He then handed me a piece of paper and a pencil and asked me to draw it again. After drawing just a few lines, he told me to stop, saying I was certainly the one who got it correct. We broke off for lunch and when we met again afterwards, the papers had turned up. He looked through them, asked a few questions and said, ‘A very good paper indeed.’ That really made my day! I had a snack at the Quality Inn, one of a chain of cafés whose great appeal to impecunious students was the free top-ups of coffee. Sometimes I would go for light meals to The Lyons Corner House, a chain which was also very popular and reasonably priced. The waitresses wore black and white uniforms with white lace caps. They were called ‘nippies’ because of the speed of their service. This led to a corny joke: ‘Why did they put the central heating on in Lyons Corner House?’ The answer: ‘To prevent you feeling nippy!’

I returned home and in due course was informed that I had passed the examinations in all subjects. This was very pleasing as I had achieved the first half of my goal by the age of twenty, and had high hopes of being fully qualified as an architect by the age of twenty-one or twenty-two, but it was not to be.

Soon, rationing of food, clothing and other items was introduced. Everyone was issued with a ration book which had different weekly coupons for various foods such as butter, meat, eggs, sugar, sweets and chocolate, the shopkeeper detaching the coupon when you made a purchase. In time, as supplies became more difficult there was not enough food available for shops to honour the coupons. Some foods were not rationed such as vegetables or offal from the butcher. However, for me rationing had very little impact because, soon after it was introduced, I was in the army. It was not until after the war that I was really affected by rationing.

2

Into the Army

My call-up came in February 1940. I was ordered to report to a recruitment depot in Derby for enlistment. First there was a somewhat cursory medical examination; I duly coughed as required and was pronounced A1, fully fit for service. There were a number of other recruits there. Following the medical, we were all lined up to have a variety of vaccinations; I think the main ones were for TAB, typhoid and paratyphoid A and B, and tetanus. Because they were free, one or two men decided to go round twice and passed out!

After the medical, I was interviewed by an elderly colonel. He asked me which unit I would wish to join. I told him I was a half-qualified architect and had experience in land surveying, and therefore wished to join the Royal Engineers. Incredibly, he said he had never heard of surveyors or architects in the Royal Engineers, hummed and haa’d a bit and dismissed me. I went home to await my fate. I did not have to wait long – a week or so later I received orders to report to the Burton Road barracks in Lincoln to join the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment, an infantry regiment. So much for my request to join the Royal Engineers! My army soldier’s service and pay book shows that I ‘attested’ at Lincoln on 15 February 1940.

The Lincolnshire Regiment was known as the Yellow Bellies and their regimental march was ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’. They were one of the few regiments permitted to wear a cap badge at the back as well as the front, an honour bestowed on them after the wars in the Sudan when they fought with the enemy behind them as well as in front.

My soldier’s service and pay book.

On arrival, we were marched off to the quartermaster’s store to be kitted out with battledress, boots, puttees, forage caps, shirts, underwear, socks, haversacks, kitbags, water bottles, billycans and ‘housewives’ (the army sewing kit). We were also issued with old Lee Enfield 303 rifles, together with a cleaning kit which included pieces of cloth known as a ‘four by two’ (its size in inches) and army gas masks. Our civilian clothes were parcelled up and sent back home. I was also issued with my army pay book, identity tags (these were duplicate fibre/plastic red-brown discs to be worn round the neck, one to be buried with you and the other to be returned to your next of kin). I was also allocated my service number: 4805024 Private Litherland. One never forgets one’s army number. I had no reason to use it after the war, but can still recall it immediately.

Our quarters were in a large hangar-like building with a concrete floor. We had metal beds with mattresses made of three ‘biscuits’; in the mornings, these had to be placed on top of each other at the head of the bed for inspection with the grey army blankets neatly folded on top. We had rough pillows but no sheets: not at all comfortable. The weather was very cold and there was no heating. I do not recall anything about the food but assume it was basic and sufficient.

Discipline was very strict – in my opinion stupidly so. The officers and NCOs (non-commissioned officers) were all regular soldiers who had recently returned from a tour in India. Before the war, the general opinion seemed to be that men only joined the army if they could not get a job anywhere else and so were widely considered to be a rather low class of person. I discovered that some of the recruits who joined in my batch were also, in my view, a rough lot. The regular NCOs were a bullying group, who clearly enjoyed shouting at and trying to belittle us. We could do nothing but accept, or be given extra duties; the worst of these was to clean the latrines. It was from these regular soldiers I first came across really crude and lewd language.

My greatest difficulty was with drill on the square. I found marching extremely difficult, as I just could not keep in step easily; perhaps I have no natural sense of rhythm. I, among others, got constant bollockings for this ineptitude. There was one man who was worse than me as he could only march with both arms swinging at the same time. However, when it came to weaponry I was interested and learned quickly, and was soon proficient in stripping down and re-assembling a Bren gun. I will always remember the instructor telling us to feel for the catch underneath, saying, ‘If it had hairs on it you’d soon find it’. I was also quite good at shooting, except when we had to fire whilst wearing gas masks, as the mask did not fit properly over my spectacles and I could not see well enough to aim properly. Gas masks fitted over army spectacles, but none were available then. Army boots took some getting used to; they were very hard on the feet at first and we had to be careful not to get blisters. It was said that urine was very good for breaking them in and I recall one drunken soldier urinating in his boots rather than stagger to the latrine. We were also required to polish the boots to a high gloss. This was done by ‘boning’ them: we were issued a regulation ‘bone’, a piece of bone about five inches long and two wide, with which we rubbed the boots for hours until they were highly polished.

Apart from the drill sessions I began to enjoy my infantry training, even though the RSM (regimental sergeant major) often referred to me as ‘Creeping Jesus’. On Sundays we had to parade through the town to church behind the gaily clad regimental band.

Despite settling down to infantry life, I was still annoyed with old Colonel ‘Blimp’ at Derby who had sent me to the infantry rather than the Royal Engineers. I still felt I would be of more use in the engineers. I decided to write to Col. John Gretton to explain my feelings. He replied, saying he agreed with me and sympathised with my situation. He said he would make enquiries on a general basis but felt he could not ask for intervention on an individual case, so he did not give me much hope. Time went on and I started to enjoy life at Lincoln. I put the matter out of my mind and resolved to do well in my infantry regiment.

One day we were out on the ranges when a messenger arrived in a truck asking for Private Litherland. He said, ‘Are you the bloke who is being transferred to the Royal Engineers?’ After just a moment’s hesitation, I replied, ‘Yes, that’s me’. I jumped in the truck and we sped back to the barracks. I was told to tidy up and get ready to see the CO. I arrived at the regimental office only to get a bollocking from the RSM for having mud in the welts of my boots. I was then marched into the CO’s office. ‘Left right, left right, halt, salute, stand at ease, remove forage cap,’ and all that bullshit.

I had not spoken to the CO before; I doubt whether I had really seen him. Officers were, to us, rather remote figures to be admired or feared from a safe distance. On this occasion he was, in fact, quite friendly. He told me he had received instructions from the War Office that I was to be transferred to the Royal Engineers with immediate effect. He explained that the attitude to soldiers was now very different from that in the First World War in that every effort was being made to place them in the branches of the Army where their skills would be used to the best effect, and because of my architectural qualification it was correct for me to go to the Royal Engineers. I merely replied that I understood, with my tongue in my cheek. Then he said, unexpectedly as I hardly knew him, how very sorry he was to lose me. He added that he had been monitoring my progress closely and indeed I was on his list of those to be recommended for a commission in the regiment. He wished me well and said he was sure that before long I would be selected for a commission in the Royal Engineers. He then dismissed me and told me to report to the orderly room to receive further instruction and details of the move. The orderly clerk informed me I was to leave the next day, to get my kit ready and report early in the morning for my various instructions and papers and be ready to depart.

The next morning I received a personal letter from Sir John Grigg, the Under Secretary of State for War, informing me that, having talked to Col. John Gretton, he had ordered my immediate transfer to the Establishment for Engineer Services of the Royal Engineers at the Southern Command office in Salisbury, Wiltshire. It came with a covering letter from John Gretton – good old Col. Gretton! So much for the army placing men where they were of best use to the war effort! It had taken a minister of the government to achieve the move.

I reported to the orderly office where I was issued with various documents, my pay book, the travel warrant, a regimental route and a subsistence allowance for the journey. Amazingly, the regimental route gave very precise details for my journey. I wondered who had worked it all out so quickly. It gave the time of the train I was to take from Lincoln to King’s Cross in London, the underground route across London to Waterloo and the time of the train I was to catch from Waterloo to Salisbury. On arrival at Salisbury I was to report immediately to the Establishment for Royal Engineers, Southern Command, at their office on Fisherton Street in Salisbury. I have also wondered why such detailed instructions were given, which allowed no latitude for delayed trains. At the time they were often delayed by bomb damage to the tracks.

Next morning I was taken by truck to Lincoln station; I do not recall any fond farewells to my infantry colleagues as I had not made any lasting friends. I followed the timetable scrupulously; luckily none of the trains were delayed by air raids. On arrival at Salisbury, I asked for directions to Fisherton Street, fortunately less than half a mile away. I arrived at Salisbury just before 5.30 p.m. with all my kit, including my rifle. I am not certain of the exact date but it must have been mid- to late-April. I eventually found the right place in a small, requisitioned school. I knocked, but no one replied so I walked in complete with all my kit: pack, side-pack, kitbag and rifle.

I was most surprised to find the only two people in the office were middle-aged civilians. They told that me that they were civil servants, seconded to the army from the Ministry of Works. I handed over my papers which they scrutinised casually and at length announced they had been told to expect me, but not for another week or so, so no arrangements had been made for me. As they were just about to close the office for the day, would I please come back in the morning when they would sort things out? I asked them to direct me to the barracks where I could get a bed for the night only to be told there were no barracks and all soldiers working for the engineers were billeted with civilians and I would have to find a billet. This put me in a quandary. I explained that I had just arrived from Lincoln having travelled all day, had never been to Salisbury before, did not know anyone there, so how could I be expected to find accommodation? They were in a hurry to get off home and somewhat disgruntled at my sudden arrival at such an inconvenient time. However, they decided rather reluctantly that they must help and got in a huddle to discuss what to do. Eventually one said the only possibility was a Mrs Eades who lived on Devizes Road. They would take me to see if she would give me a room, at least for one night. They said she did billet some Royal Engineers from the office and might possibly have a vacancy. Luckily Mrs Eades did and straightaway made me very welcome. So began my few months’ stay in Salisbury; a stay which was to have the most immense effect on the rest of my life.

The next morning I went off with the other couple of sappers billeted with Mrs Eades and reported to the same office at the school on Fisherton Street. I was told I would be working as an architectural draughtsman in the Establishment for Engineer Services (a branch of the Royal Engineers) drawing office, situated above a shop, further down Fisherton Street.

I was taken there and handed over to the chief draughtsman, a Mr Green, a civil servant from the Ministry of Works. He was an elderly man who must have been near retirement; he was kindly, but very old-fashioned. In his architectural design work he was very outdated and met with little success when he tried to steer the young army personnel into the same mould. He told me that he had a son who was a regular soldier and a warrant officer in the Royal Engineers and so was well disposed to us and in his way tried to be a father figure. I was put into a large room overlooking Fisherton Street. There was a drawing desk running the whole length of the street-side wall with windows overlooking the street and places for four draughtsmen. Of the four who occupied them, three were army and one a civil servant. There were a few other rooms in the offices which were allocated to other draughtsmen, mostly soldiers, but there were also three or four civilians. There was a separate ‘den’ for Mr Green.

Amongst my fellow architects/draughtsmen that I remember well were Reg Pianca whose family was connected with The Café Royal in London; Tom Ellis, also a Londoner and already fully qualified; and Harry Foyster, also qualified, not in the RIBA but some other architectural society not recognised by us as the real thing. These three will feature later in the story. There were also one or two student surveyors.

When I arrived at the office, I was informed that the lowest rank for an architectural draughtsman was lance corporal, so I was automatically promoted and put up my single stripe: it turned out to be my only promotion during the whole of my service.

The summer of 1940 was quite good; we got lots of warm sun through the office window. One of my army colleagues suffered from hot feet, so he would remove his boots and socks, get two buckets of water and sit at his desk with one foot in each bucket. The civilian in the room was the first civil servant with whom I had worked. He was engaged in preparing a working plan for a building – it seemed to be half-finished when I arrived. He did not appear to make much progress and it was nowhere near completion when I left Salisbury some four months later. He showed no interest at all in the war effort, only in his own retirement. This coloured my impression at the time of the Civil Service as a lazy lot. Although some certainly did the minimum of work, I later came across many dedicated, hard-working civil servants.

Soon after I arrived, we were asked individually to prepare plans for a new ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) headquarters, setting up a sort of mini-competition. The scheme I submitted was for a modern building with the whole emphasis on a layout which was simple and functional, with the disposition of offices in the correct sequence for medical routine and the service rooms – bathrooms, toilets, kitchens, etc. – grouped together for ease of water supply and drainage. Old Mr Green produced his own scheme, based on the idea that you first designed the elevations of the building and thereafter devised the internal arrangement to fit in them. The result was, to me, a complete hotch-potch of a plan with rooms fitted into a fixed shell – quite awful, and it would be far more expensive to build than any of the other designs. But he was head of the office and only put forward his own design. We all felt it would just be a waste of valuable scarce materials and would be functionally unsatisfactory.

Sometime during that summer, the Southern Command took over Wilton House, at Wilton just outside Salisbury – the home of the Pembroke family and a major historical building. There were no floor plans of the house, so the office was told to make a survey and prepare floor plans of the whole house, so that the rooms could be allocated their new military functions. A team of four was selected by Mr Green: himself, another civilian and two soldiers: Harry Foyster and myself.

When we arrived we were greeted by the Countess of Pembroke who said we were free to go anywhere we liked in the house to carry out the survey. Mr Green decided that Harry and I should start on the ground floor whilst he and his companion would measure the first floor. This was the first time I had been in a stately home, and I found it quite magnificent. What struck us most was the immense thickness