Rowing Against the Tide - A career in sport and politics (4 page)

We did reasonably well in the school league running at that time, but our biggest hate were our neighbours St Pauls. Most schools invited you to tea after a race, but not St Pauls, they just paddled off back to their boathouse, confirming the widely held view of the rest of us, that they just felt superior to all the other schools on the Tideway at that time. The Schools Head one year, had a chaotic start, and when I realised that St Pauls had started, and no one had sent us off, or maybe in the turmoil we hadn’t heard the start called, I set us off with a call from the cox’s seat. We were furious to find that St Pauls had gone Head, by a couple of seconds, and we were certain, that we would have had that honour had the start not been messed up. To be fair, in 1952 they turned out to be one of the fastest school crews in the country, beating both the London and Thames Rowing Clubs in subsequent regattas. Rowing wasn’t the only sport where St Paul’s tried to look down on what they considered their inferiors, and showed it again in athletics. Latymer at that time had a great athletics team lead by our geography master Tim Briaux who I believe threw the javelin for GB. The team did win the Schools Championship one year, but when a match with St Pauls was agreed, they would only accept on condition that two or three of our best events were excluded from the match programme.

Because of the examination board we followed, we could not race at Henley Royal Regatta, so Marlow was our prime aim. It was a great regatta, and proudly wearing my shiny new Thames Rowing Club tie, I went to what was known as the long bar, to get a soft drink. I was aware of the rivalry between London and Thames, but without thinking went to the end of the bar, where I found myself surrounded by the giants of the London crew with their navy blue caps with white round the edges. Looking down on me from a great height, one of the crew said “Boy you are at the wrong end of the bar”, and I fled for my life to the other end, and into the safe custody of the Thames RC crowd.

Back then, there were two National bodies for our sport, the Amateur Rowing Association, and the National Rowing Association. The former were for amateurs, and the latter, for artisans, i.e. those working with their hands! The School had planned to enter Putney Town Regatta, only to find that it was an NRA event, and we were not allowed to enter. Not until the mid fifties did the two associations merge. That same old Olympian, Berry brought a crew from the London Dock Labour Board to Henley Royal, and our sport became open to all.

I passed what was then the School Certificate, and having matriculated, stayed on into the sixth form. Those two years were the most enjoyable, being treated as adults rather than as kids, but although I passed with good grades the Higher Schools Certificate, the equivalent now of A levels, I failed to win a University Scholarship and opted to do my National Service, and think about the future at a later date.

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Chapter
3

NATIONAL SERVICE

Having failed to win a scholarship to University; very few made it in 1950, I opted to get my two years National Service out of the way and take stock towards the end of my time. We reported to Oswestry for basic training, and whilst queuing for the required army haircut heard that a half crown pressed into the barbers hand, would leave you at least with some hair. I did this successfully, but it backfired because I volunteered to box for our section, and having done so, fell foul of an observing officer who noted I kept flicking my fringe back. Marched off for a re-cut, it turned out worse than if I’d not bothered to cheat in the first place.

During those first six weeks, we were under a Sergeant Murleader, who whilst of necessity a strict disciplinarian, was quite unlike the characters portrayed in so many films, and took the view that since most of that intake came from reasonable schools, he should not have to repeat himself, and if we played fair with him, he would reciprocate. We did have one disaster, for after carefully ironing our trousers on one of the tables, we found when we finished and removed the blanket, that we had created a felt top to what had been a polished table. I can’t remember how many tins of brown polish were used to restore the table to its previous gloss.

In order to be part of the group, I took up smoking and chose Capstan Full Strength just to show my metal, but switched to a pipe before demob two years later. The scene first thing each morning, was a comedy I never missed, for one of the squad had a bed lengthwise along the wall. Half way up the wall was a one inch strip of wooden horizontal beading, on which he would leave a few stub ends of part smoked cigarettes. As he awoke, his hand would creep up the wall, search for the beading, and selecting from the fag-ends, would not open his eyes until he’d had his first puff.

Towards the end of those six weeks, I was granted leave for a day, to attend an interview with a civil service panel with the aim of a possible career in a government science laboratory. I left school with my head full of facts in the world of botany and zoology, but after six weeks of left right, left right, about turn etc, my mind was blank, and I failed most miserably. As it happened it was the best possible outcome, for whilst I might have qualified with a basic degree under a day release scheme, it would never have been at a standard that would have allowed real advancement up the ladder.

My next stop was at Lark Hill camp on the Salisbury Plain, in a gunnery observation regiment. We trained on 25 pounders towed into position by special armoured quads, which on command, stopped, allowed the crew to drop the circular platform under the gun, then went forward drawing the gun onto the platform ready for firing. We were cautioned to keep our feet out of the way when the platform was dropped, and the quad lurched forward, otherwise we would lose a foot, which sadly one of our crowd did.

The regimental Sergeant Major Merryman, was a great guy, and ran a tight ship, and clearly was more in charge than the commissioned officers. Firing practice was fun, but on one occasion when there was a misfire, and the order “cartridge unload” was given, the gun crew froze, failed to unload and started to back away from the gun. The cry went up “get back you bloody national service men”.

We acted as “host or base” to regiments and reservists who came for one or two weeks gunnery practice. The pain in the butt were the Royal Horse Artillery, who had such airs and graces that it was hard not to burst out laughing when their conceit came back and bit them in the arse. There was a slope on which they pitched their tents, and then they foolishly parked their mounted guns on the slope above. Needless to say one slipped its brakes and careered down the slope ploughing through their tents.

We all were asked to design a coat of arms for ourselves, and I chose crossed rowing blades and a cox’s megaphone, with the motto “Semper in Excreta”, but whether it's still on the wall of the hut sixty years on is most unlikely.

Foolishly I did not opt for overseas, and found myself posted to North Wales to an Ack-Ack Regiment near Tymyn (Towyn) then a small seaside town on the Cambrian Coast. Back in 1950 Merioneth was a dry county, and on Sunday the locals promenaded in their Sunday best, and no entertainment was to be seen. A trip into Towyn was hilarious, for the cinema was the Town Hall, and an usherette came round during the interval with a flit spray. Whether this was normal practice, or the recognition that we smelly gunners were in the audience I’m not sure. On leaving the hall, I noticed in a shop window a notice in Welsh and English, a poster stating that all self respecting nations govern themselves, Wales should do likewise, and requested people signed the petition. It was dark, wet, and miserable, and I could not resist wanting to go in and sign! A camp cinema was set up, and I managed to train as a projectionist, and it was certainly much better than the odd trip to the Towyn Town Hall.

Our camp area also operated as a short term training site for other regiments, and on one occasion we had both a Scottish and Geordie regiment on site, and they both ended up in Towyn one Saturday night. There had been a tented bar set up for them, but no-one had bothered to apply for an extension to the licensing hours. That was the first foolish mistake. When the bar closed there was chaos, riot and wreckage, and a call went out to any of our regiment still on site, to muster in order to break riot. Strange how so many of us quickly disappeared into the Welsh countryside. As a result, forward planning required a more careful choice of which regiments were paired with which !

Our Colonel was a boffin who had designed the No 1 Predictor, a piece of kit that first picked up the position of a plane, calculated where it would be by the time the ack-ack shell reached that height, and hopefully therefore would bring it down. In practice, a plane towed a windsock some distance behind it, and the aim was to bring down the windsock. We had a demonstration team, and our colonel had a wager with his opposite number that our team would bring down the windsock on the first day.

Needless to say someone forgot to factor in the length of the tow line, and a high explosive shell burst first time just in front of the nose of the towing plane. It was reported that the pilot radioed down that he was pulling the f****** thing not pushing it.

The Gunners 1951

By February 1952 I was a bombardier at regimental headquarters, and had the sad task of lowering the flag to half mast at the news of the death of King George V1. Later that year, as acting sergeant, for they had tried to get me to sign on, I developed a taste for fillet steak. When the rations were delivered to the regiment, they had to be distributed to the three Messes,- Officers, Sergeants and ORs. So far as the meat was concerned, it was clear that much of the undercut or fillet steak was too good for the Officers, and insufficient for the Sergeants Mess, and would most certainly be lost in a stew for the ORs. Inevitably a decent allocation of these top cuts was set aside for the cooks and the night duty staff. Often the duty Officer would call in late in the evening knowing there was a meal of the best steak available, and I confess that is where I grew to love fillet steak.

Just before my demob was due, my father was seriously ill and I was sent home early and was not required to return for formal demobilisation. My father had a massive heart attack whist in hospital, and after some twelve or more hours with his life in the balance, he pulled through and made a full recovery. At some fifty odd years of age, he lived on to enjoy life until the age of eighty eight. Leaving as I did, I missed the usual goodbye to the camp which the train driver of the push and pull railway operating along the coast always allowed. If there were lads leaving on demob, he’d sound his steam whistle a couple of times, and it was always greeted with cheers all round.

I had made up my mind that either University, or a degree at night school was not possible, and decided to try for a commercial career. Whilst it had clearly improved, my lack of self confidence was never fully overcome until I completed those two years of National Service from 1950 to ‘52. Before then I was just a kid, but after two years, Taffies, Geordies, Brummies, Scousers, Jocks and all, were real people not just names I’d vaguely heard about, and that was my real growing up. I have no doubt that two years in the ranks was the best thing that could have happened to me, and I can’t help but feel that much of our troubles with some young men now, would have been straightened out by a period of National Service.

Strangely that feeling was underscored when I was PPS to John Patten the Minister of State at the Home Office, when the standing committee was dealing with yet another law and justice bill. There had been a lot of comment from both sides with regard to youth problems in the eighties, but as a PPS, the custom was that you sat silently behind your minister. I reached forward and whispered in John’s ear, who indicating to the chairman that whilst custom denied my speaking, it should be pointed out that I was the only member of the committee who had served as a National Serviceman, and that the troubles being referred to, escalated once National Service was abandoned. One other very interesting statistic came out of that committee, was that the only time during the 20th Century where violent crime remained static, were the five years following the first and second World Wars. It’s a sad commentary on we human beings, that the cathartic effect of the violence of war, dims after five years, and particularly men, revert back to animal instincts.

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Chapter 4

EARNING A LIVING

Leaving the army, I felt that having watched my older brother spend five evenings and weekends studying at home and at evening classes for an honours degree, whilst working full time at the Department of the Government Chemist, was a commitment I felt I could not face, and decided to try a career in commerce or manufacturing. I admired Michael’s dedication and recognised his academic abilities, but for me the prospect of just an ordinary degree that would have lead to an ordinary mundane role buried in some government department had little attraction.