My National Service memoir of my service with the Royal Regiment of Artillery 15th Independent Observation Battery as a Surveyor RA starts and ends with a picture. Below I am fresh recruit, happy in anticipation of all that lies ahead. This picture that is probably worth more than the proverbial thousand words, also tells its own story. I am very young man, perhaps someone with more of a youth about me than a man. [Read more…]
In 1950 all long distance travel and beyond the borders of one’s own country was generally by sea. The passenger liners were the prime carriers. Air travel was still in its comparative infancy, expensive and the first (and in the world) transatlantic flights by the British Comet jet passenger plane did not take place until 1958. It was long before the 747 revolutionized travel and shrunk the world. [Read more…]
Before chronicling my National Service experience in Hong Kong, I would be remiss in not setting the stage on which the events played out. Here I provide a short note on Hong Kong, the events in China at the time, and global political scene in the the 1950s with relevance to Hong Kong. [Read more…]
After our eventful weeks at Lo Wu and the trials and tribulations of serving there the Battery moved to a new camp site. [Read more…]
And so on Sunday May 6 1951 at 930AM we embarked upon the Dunera and at 3 pm sailed for home. Compared to our departure from Liverpool as the Devonshire made its way down the Mersey on a dark and dirty January night with no ceremony this was different ; pipes and drums from a Scottish regiment bade us farewell and it was a bright sunny day. [Read more…]
When I started this National Service memoir, my model was a book, something static that is written then read. One of my joys in discovering web publishing is the interactive nature of it all.
Chapter 7 – Lo Wu, New Territories started by describing our arrival at Hong Kong and transfer to Whitfield Barracks, followed next day by a train journey from Kowloon to Fanling, the end of the line in Hong Kong. A commentator was able to correct the record as he traveled on the same voyage as me, and has a distinct memory of marshaling there at the docks and proceeding to Lo Wu directly from the ship. This in turn prompted me to review my historical records, photographs and journal entries again. To my delight I found the photograph below of us on our second day in Hong Kong having arrived from Kowloon at Fanling:
Awaiting transportation to Lo Wu after disembarking in Fanling are likely members of 98th Squad. Sitting to the left of the “Fanling” sign are probably Jim Dallaway and Frank Beames. On the right of the sign, standing and smoking is likely Bombardier S.
My hope is that I will have a chance to repeat this type of post. While no one likes to make a mistake, getting the record of our time in the National Service correct is important, and the process allows one to better link other events together, and revisit the records to identify additional pictures. All part of the fun of a memoir on the web.
Recent Comments