A Gordon For Me

By Brian Robertson

An honest and brave account of National Service in the 1950s Brian Robinson spares no detail in his story from farmer's son to a Gordon Highlander.

 

A Gordon For Me is an entertaining and compelling story of one man's experiences of the Armed Forces, and the true nature of international conflict. 60 years ago, Brian Robertson left his family farm to undergo two years of National Service. From Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dundee to Cyprus, Brian experienced much, much more than the average farmhand ever would. The book starts off as an exploration of the way British National Servicemen were treated post-World War Two. It then takes an unexpected twist to examine and exemplify the ruthlessness and brutality of British colonialism in Cyprus at this time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Robertson
• Release date: Apr 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9781923061873

Book preview

Introduction

Iwonder how National Service would go down with the eighteen-year-olds of today? It would have to include girls, of course. We were a very biddable younger generation in Britain in the 1950s, because, through the sacrifice of our elders, we had just escaped the terrible fate of being under German Nazi rule. For this reason, we probably went along with compulsory National Service, regarding ourselves as fortunate. I suspect young people today would need a very strong reason to give up all freedoms, put themselves under the military discipline we experienced, and do the bidding of a government. I don’t think I would do it now, even if I was sixty-nine years younger!

There was conscription to the British Armed Services during WWII. After the war ended in 1945, and it continued until November 1960. It was termed National Service during this period. The last national serviceman was discharged in May 1963.

After WWII, National Service was initially for eighteen months, but during the Korean War (1950 to 1953), it was extended to two years. It remained at two years for the rest of the period, although the government had the power to extend National Service for any individual should they decide this was necessary. This happened occasionally.

Just imagine if a conflict flared up and the British government decided it needed a standing army of many hundreds of thousands of troops. No doubt they would be able to recruit some volunteers, but I doubt they would get enough. If they decided to implement a form of national service, how would people react to this? If the law of today was similar to the 1950s, most would be expected to put their life plans on hold and join the Services whether they wanted to or not. They would get food and board and about a third of the minimum wage. The Service would control their lives 24 hours of every day. Strict obedience would be required. They would have no say about joining any conflict in the world where they might be at risk of death. What percentage of youth today in the UK or in any free Western nation would risk the consequences and tell their government to get lost? It might be quite high!

When I was eight years old in 1944, my dad bought a farm at Rothienorman in Aberdeenshire, twenty-five miles north of Aberdeen. All he and Mum wanted to do was to move the family away from Aberdeen and the influence of the war; at least that is what we were told. Not that WWII had much effect on Aberdeen in North-East Scotland. On a few occasions, we experienced bombing raids by German planes flying across the North Sea from occupied Norway. Many buildings were hit, but this was nothing like the bombing and loss of life experienced by industrial towns in England or the blitz in London. On reflection, I think my father was looking for a change of lifestyle and his insistence that the family would be safer in the country, away from any large town, was a way of persuading my mother that this was a good move. Mum went along with the idea, even though she loved the city. Dad most definitely had ambitions to make his living at farming rather than as a travelling salesman for the Valvoline Oil Company. Neither did he like being an Air Raid Warden in Aberdeen, which was compulsory for him. He was too old to be conscripted, but young enough to help with the war effort. He had been a pilot cadet in the Royal Flying Corps in WWI.

I never had any desire to join the army, but we all knew about national service. I worked on our small farm and thought I would probably have no choice about conscription. My father had applied for an exemption on the grounds that the farm needed my labour, but he was not very hopeful. It would probably be the Gordon Highlanders for me—much as I had other ideas about what I should do with my life.

Making as much money as possible on the farm by helping my dad was my unwavering ambition. We were never short of ideas and plans on how to achieve this. Dad was a great designer of ways we might make more money and if his plans meant we needed more buildings or equipment, then we generally built them ourselves. He started adult life as an engineer and nothing, according to him, was ever impossible. I helped with the construction of new piggeries, learned how to make and use pre-cast, reinforced concrete in many different ways, and we were the first in the district to keep laying hens intensively. My life plan was to always work on the farm.

School was like a prison for me, and I could not get away from it fast enough. At the age of fourteen years, I left school temporarily to help with the potato harvest and was eventually able to persuade my parents not to send me back.

Since the age of fifteen years, I remember going to the local dances and seeing the success those already in uniform had in picking up the girls—they flocked to them. On the one hand, I wanted to stay on the farm and help my family, and on the other, I expected that a uniform worn at the local dance would probably be a distinct advantage. At the time, this fact sometimes outweighed many of the disadvantages!

Very soon after leaving school, I became a keen member of the Young Farmers Club and had many friends who were in exactly the same position as I was. As soon as I reached the magic age of seventeen years and was eligible for a driving license, nothing could stop me. I attended all the Young Farmers Meetings, all the local weekend dances, and many of the not so local ones. Having a car was a huge plus in persuading any girl to allow you to see her home at the end of the evening and at the age of seventeen that was what life was about. Who wanted to join the bloody army?

This was how girls and boys, unknown to each other, met in Aberdeenshire in the 1950s. You went to a dance and tried to dance with all the girls you regarded as attractive. They could refuse, of course. Unless you had a steady girlfriend, you stood or sat at one side of the hall with all the other ‘single’ boys. All the single girls occupied the other side of the hall. As the music started, you walked across the hall to ask a girl to dance. This was a risky business because she might refuse. If you were brave and confident, you did this as soon as the music started, before many were dancing. Everyone could observe you, but you had to be fast enough to beat the other boys. If she refused, you had the choice of walking back to the boys’ side across the empty hall or daring to ask another girl—your very obvious second choice. Embarrassing is an understatement.

Talking during the dance was used to find out where she lived and how she planned to get home.

Do you come here often? Do you like the band? Where is it you live? Did you come with your friends?

Oh, you came with your older brother? Right. This was usually a bad sign.

You then decided, depending on these conversations, which girl you would dare ask to accompany home. If she refused and there were still a few dances to go, then you might have time to ask another. Not very gentlemanly, I know, but that was how it worked. Occasionally, you were assured that you were onto a good thing if a girl you fancied asked you to dance at the ‘lady’s choice’. This was the one or perhaps two dances during the evening, where the master of ceremonies declared that the girls could choose the boy they wanted to dance with. Mind you, whatever the process, it usually turned out that you simply took yourself home.

Our farm was small, and about a third of the 44.5 acres was near the top of a stony hillside; so steep that cultivation was very difficult. It also faced northeast, not the best aspect to catch the scarce warm sun to ripen the oats and the barley. Regardless of all this, we were prolific producers of eggs and bacon. We turned the small farm at Burnside of Folla, Rothienorman, into one of the most efficient farming units around. We bought in cereals, fishmeal, and mineral supplements and ground all our own pig and poultry feed for over a thousand laying hens and thirty sows while bringing all their offspring to bacon weight. More than five hundred pigs were sold each year to the bacon factory at Lawsons of Dyce in Aberdeen. All eggs were sold to the local retailers in the district. In the early 1950s, this made us one of the biggest producers of our kind in the area.

Unfortunately, none of this impressed the government officials who had the power to grant deferment from National Service to those who worked on farms. They seemed to be more impressed by acres.

My sister, two years my junior, was the academic, loved school, and was bound to stay on. My little brother, four years younger, was also still at school, so it was even more important that I should remain to work on the farm.

It was not to be, however. We did not have a dairy farm or the land area required to justify an exemption. I suspected the army would be similar to school, and I knew most national servicemen were stuck in some camp in Britain. I couldn’t see the point.

The brown envelope eventually arrived from the War Office in early December. It was four months after my eighteenth birthday, in August. The letter contained orders for me to report to the Bridge of Don Barracks, Aberdeen, on the 3rd of January 1955.

I had a great time during Christmas and New Year 1954 with my family. I took part in all the usual celebrations like going round each other’s houses with my young farmer friends on Hogmanay and even getting quite drunk for the first time in my life. Being allowed to get drunk arrived at the same time as my obligation to abandon my family and serve the nation.

When that day came, the snow was heavy, but I took my brown envelope and off I went to catch the 10 am bus for the twenty-five-mile journey into Aberdeen to join the Gordon Highlanders. I was not looking forward to it.

Chapter 1

The Initial Shock

It was cold in Aberdeen. In January of 1955, the city was covered in deep snow while freezing gales blew in from the North Sea. Nowhere was it worse than at the mouth of the Don. The river offered up its contents to the dark sea at the most easterly and exposed part of the Scottish coast. The Gordon Highlanders’ Bridge of Don Barracks was the first building to feel the icy blast coming uninterrupted all the way from the Arctic.

Kevin Taylor and Bill Shields rang the bell, and then rang it again, at the barrack square gate. The gale tore at their inadequate clothing as, hunched up, they stamped their feet, waiting to be let in. The gate was at the corner of a huge five-acre snow-covered parade ground adjacent to the guardroom, which was at the corner on the south side of the square and next to the road. A smooth white expanse stretched across to the administration, and the NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institute) building on the opposite east side and to the left on the north side stood the two-storey dormitories. The fourth western side bordered the main Aberdeen to Ellon Road separated from the footpath by black, steel, two-metre railings. Large traffic gates and a small side gate for pedestrians were situated in the corner. Kevin and Bill had just got off the Bridge of Don tram that had taken them from the railway station.

The snow, the dark sky, and the stark grey granite of the architecture all contributed to a foreboding felt by the new recruits as they waited for someone to answer their summons and open this gate on the next chapter of their lives. A soldier soon appeared in regular army uniform but wearing a flat funny hat with a pompom on top. Despite their premonitions, Kevin and Bill were very glad to get inside the guardroom building—any building.

Having to go all the way from the south of England to report to a Scottish Regiment must have come as a huge shock to them. They were two young men from the London area ordered to report to the Gordon Highlanders in Aberdeen. Why had their compulsory registration for National Service in August or September of 1954, after their eighteenth birthdays, landed them here—and in January? I don’t believe they ever found out the answer.

For me it was different. From the age of eight years, I had been brought up on the farm. I had never had any desire to join the army, but I knew about conscription, and in some ways, I dreaded it. I was so sure about how my life was going to turn out I regarded the army as one huge waste of time. On reflection, I was arrogant on this count. In actual fact, the army did me more good than I could ever have imagined.

Although I regretted conscription, it was still a huge adventure for me. I had never lived away from home before. But for Bill and Kevin, coming all the way from London on an overnight train and into freezing conditions, it must have been traumatic.

Everyone who joined the Gordon Highlanders, on the third of January 1955, was bundled into the one dormitory, thirty-three of us in total (see photograph). Some had signed on as regular soldiers, but most of us were national service conscripts. As a conscripted national serviceman, you were in the army for two years, but it was possible to sign on as a regular soldier for a minimum of three years. If you signed on, you were entitled to almost double the pay and for many, this was very tempting. I stuck