Cottesloe 2015: I TRADED WITH THE SHOPKEEPER

Our final excerpt in this series takes us to the end of the war, when our storyteller was eventually demobbed back in the UK.  We hope you enjoyed this special series.

"At the end of British activities in Egypt we went from Egypt, right across France to Lyon.  Even went through Monte Carlo.  We went by train. 

I went around all the music shops during that time; many were damaged.  I remember going into a shop full of music.  The music was in good condition, brand new.  I traded with the shop keeper 2 bars of luxe toilet soap for a Chopin étude, opus’ 10 and 25.  I managed to get the music back to England on 2 bars of soap!  2 bars of soap was really something valuable.  It was rare, not in great supply.   I still had that music when I got back to England.   

Eventually I was transferred to the army reserve to perform piano for the armed forces through ENSA (the Entertainments National Services Association).  Right at the end of the war, when arrangements were being made to send troops back to the UK from France, we found ourselves in the extreme north of France and I was told I had to go join a unit in Dartmouth, where I got demobbed." 

THE SYSTEM WORKED WELL

Here is the second in our three-part August series about time serving in the British army during WWII, from a man with so many stories that we can't wait to sit with him again to hear more.  We love his frankness, his dry wit and his cheeky behaviour! 

"In our off time, a rugby club had been organised by a major, or someone high up, because the morale in the army was going down as we seemed to be losing all the time.  We played against the French army.  They beat us - they beat me – because I was carried off the field!  I was transferred from where we were playing in France to the 63rd General Hospital in Alexandria, Egypt, needing an operation on my knee in order to be able to walk.   All because of a rugby game!

I was then transferred to be a first class clerk for an officer in Suez.  As a clerk I had a recognised lunch hour.  During lunch hours I tried to keep fit.  We went swimming in a roped off area in the ocean in Port Tewik. We took possession of a dhow boat moored there and we used to dive off the mast into the water.  A trainer took me under his wing and taught me to box for maybe 2 years.  I did weight lifting as well.

At that time I had a good deal of freedom.  I could hitch hike if I wanted transport.  Just went down to the road and signalled to get someone to stop.  You could get practically any kind of transport.  The system worked very well.  I played the organ at a wedding in Cairo and turned up at the wedding in an army truck.  No one thought that was particularly strange, they just accepted it." 

THE LUMP IN MY THROAT

We are delighted to have had the opportunity to speak with such a fantastic and interesting man.  There was so much morethat we wanted to hear from him but unfortunately we have not yet had the time to hear his whole story.  Our storyteller was born and raised in County Durham, UK in the 1920s.  Extremely talented at languages and music, he was a professional classical pianist as well as a teacher.  Over the course of August we will be releasing his memories of being called up during World War II.

"I was called up to serve in the British army on 16 October 1939 and served with the Royal Engineers Corp.  I didn’t realise that I was ‘in the war’ when I first got called up.  I was trained immediately.  It's funny, but I can still remember my 7 digit army number today.

Royal Engineers was a non-combatant unit.  We did about 6 months in France – that’s all the British forces lasted for there.  At one point I was within 8km of the Siegfried Line, a famous loading off point for the army.  

When the unit was retreating to the north of France, my commanding officer suggested that if I wanted to save all my music I should put it with the office papers and it would be taken with everything carried below. I remember the lump in my throat as we marched out of Brest, leaving my music behind in an effort to preserve it.  It was all music I’d picked up in various leaves, as I’d moved about quite a bit in the north of France.  That’s when I saw the unit base going up in flames.  That’s how the Germans dealt with any allied possessions that they came across."