Can You Walk?

By Arthur Boynton

From childhood as a patient for the VAD at the start of the Second World War. As a cadet at age ten to sixteen. Progressing through the ranks of the Voluntary Order of St. John of Jerusalem from 1939 to 1992.

Full-time as ambulance driver to station officer to training officer to senior paramedic training superintendent from 1960 to 1992.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Sep 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514462096

Arthur Boynton

I was born in 1933, the only child of Margaret and Thomas Boynton. My father worked as a boiler-smith at the steam locomotive sheds in Selby in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. Voluntary Service, "unpaid," in the St. John Ambulance first as a patient then a cadet, adult member, cadet officer, area staff officer. "Officially" thirty-eight years. Actually nearer forty-seven. Full-time service "salaried" started as an ambulance man, station officer, training officer, senior paramedic training superintendent. Thirty-two years in service from 1960 to 1992.

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Copyright © 2015 by Arthur Boynton.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015911941

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-6207-2

                Softcover        978-1-5144-6208-9

                eBook             978-1-5144-6209-6

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Rev. date: 08/11/2015

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CONTENTS

A START AT THE BEGINNING!

AMBULANCE STORIES

CASE STUDIES

1948 to 1992

ARTHUR BOYNTON O.St.J

Volunteer 1948 to 1960

Full Time 1960 to 1992

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Voluntary Service in the St John Ambulance Brigade.

Starting as a Cadet, then Ambulance Member, Cadet Officer and finally Area Superintendent.

38 years service (Unpaid Voluntary)

From March 1960 -Full Time Ambulance Service -St John Agency for West Riding of Yorkshire then after the 1973 re-organisation, with the West Yorkshire Regional Ambulance Service.

From Ambulanceman to Senior Paramedic Training Superintendent

32 years service. 1960 to 1992.

Born in 1933 at Ferryhill in County Durham, son of a railway worker who was transferred to Selby in what was the old West Riding of Yorkshire in 1937 to work at the rail workshops in that town.

As the prospect of War became more likely the population were urged to train in skills that might be needed. Our next-door neighbour at the time had two daughters who attended First-Aid classes with the local V.A.D. which was part of the Women’s Voluntary Service. Most of the lady members, were of mature years and found it difficult to bend down or lift and carry their colleagues who were also of generous proportions.

The girls next door asked my mothers permission to take me to the classes to act as patient thus at the tender age of five I became an honorary member of the VAD! Naturally I listened to all the lectures given by the local GP’s and became proficient in all the bandaging techniques of the time. The ladies had to take examinations to maintain their proficiency and again I was roped in as patient. It was not unusual for me to whisper answers to the ladies who had forgotten what to do. We were fortunate in Selby in that we were not called upon to put our skills into practise very often. We were however surrounded by airfields and suffered the sadness of some of the returning aircraft crashing nearby. I was still too young to appreciate the tragedies taking place, it was something of a great adventure and it was not until years later that I became aware of the price the country had paid for victory.

Another of our near neighbours was superintendent of the St John Ambulance Brigade who pointed out the fact that I was a boy and not a girl and would I like to transfer my skills to the male side of the organisation so at the tender age of 11 in 1944 I was head-hunted into the organisation I then served for thirty eight years! I was in the forefront when the brigade took on the task of providing the ambulance service for the National Health Service in the District of Selby and was one of the youths who helped to carry the patient’s belongings and hold doors open in those early days! (But more of that later).

The next milestone in my career was at the age of eighteen when along with thousands of other young men I had to go to serve King and Country by doing two years of National Service (you had no choice in the matter) I was more fortunate than many in that my request to be allowed to serve in the Royal Army Medical Corps was approved. Normally the services seemed to like to put square pegs into round holes, a lad who was serving an apprenticeship in motor engineering was put in the Army Catering Corps!! When I had left school I got a job in a local Fine Chemical Factory as a trainee Laboratory Technician, so the R.A.M.C. seemed a logical choice.

I suffered the indignities of basic training for twelve weeks where the NCO’s try to grind you down to a standard level and surprised them all at the end of the time by achieving record marks in all my medical subjects. They of course did not know that I had been training since the age of five. I was recommended to go on an Instructors Course to become a staff member of the Training Establishment and this I did, so my time in His Majesties Forces was made much more comfortable.

Arthur Boynton's photo.

The Depot and Training establishment of the R.A.M.C was situated in Queen Elizabeth Barracks at Crookham in Hampshire. There were seven companies under training at any one time with an intake every fortnight of three hundred men; each company had ten platoons of between thirty and thirty-three men and when I became an instructor I was put in charge of one of the platoons. This was in C Company and I had to ensure they obeyed all the rules, even to checking that they had a bath at least once a week!! We had a notebook that they had to sign in my presence and I had to inspect them to make sure that they looked clean, in the 1950’s it was not uncommon for houses not to have a bathroom and some recruits were very averse to experiencing total immersion!! It would not have done for members of the medical corps to be unhygienic although some of them tried to get away with it by damping their hair.

Living in a barrack room with thirty others though meant that the dirty ones were soon identified by their smell and rough justice was meted out by their companions, who took them to the showers and scrubbed them with floor scrubbers. As an N.C.O of course I did not know anything about this, a little bit of what was known in the trade as the Nelson Touch. From start to finish the training took twelve weeks and they were assessed by examinations at fortnightly intervals, if a recruit was deemed hopeless for the Corps they were transferred to another Regiment where they might acquire suitable skills in another trade.

I tried to be as humane as the system allowed me to be, please remember that we are talking about 1951 before Human Rights and Political Correctness surfaced. It was a popular saying on first taking over a new batch of raw recruits that the N.C.O. was now to be regarded as the almighty one and when the order came to jump they jumped. I told my squad that my purpose in life was to turn them into efficient members of the R.A.M.C. and we had to work together as a team. Sometimes I might tell them to do something that they would under normal circumstances prefer not to do- but that they really had no choice in the matter. Rather similar to when their Mothers or Fathers told them what to do, I did not wish to be regarded as such a close family member but rather as a kind uncle, I was henceforth behind my back referred to as Uncle Arthur! This nickname surfaced several months later when one of my old recruits became an officer (he was a qualified pharmacist) He came back to the Training Depot to do a period of what would now be termed man management and was duty officer one night. He was rather zealous and had got a reputation for being very keen on protocol and attention to detail. I had been cleaning my equipment and was dressed in fatigues and not wearing my beret (which was nearly a hanging offence) and wandered in to the Company Office to look at the duty roster. My ex-squaddy was busy ranting at the duty sergeant for not being properly dressed whilst on duty i.e. he did not have his hat on. He was standing rigidly to attention but looking imploringly over the shoulder of the officer telling me to make myself scarce before I caught a packet as well. The officer finished his harangue and turned to leave and as he passed me he said in a friendly voice goodnight uncle Arthur. The duty sergeants face was a picture and I had difficulty persuading him that I was not related to the officer!

For quite a while afterwards I was treated with a wary respect by the other N.C.O’s of the Company, which was very useful, even though I was innocent of any underhand dealings!

My two years of National Service passed fairly quickly and in later years I learnt to acknowledge the benefit I had gained from the experience. I had led a sheltered life up to my 18th year being the only child of my parents who naturally spoiled me and the trauma of army life came as quite a shock. I had to learn very quickly the art of survival under adverse conditions and this stood me in good stead for my future life.

Back to Civvy Street !

I returned to my job as a trainee laboratory technician but my experiences in the forces had made me appreciate the outdoor life and the confines of the chemical factory did not go down well. I had taken up my voluntary work with the local St John Ambulance Brigade on my return from the R.A.M.C. and was offered a position as full