By Norman Dannatt

THE WAR (I DID IT MY WAY) by 7674492 Private (Acting Sergeant) Dannatt 1 When war broke out my Mum, who was a wise old bird, told me to go down to the Music Shop and buy copies of all the popular songs of the day. Then I had to learn to play them on the piano, off by heart. As Mum said, “When they find out you can play the piano, you’ll have a better war of it.” Ever the dutiful son, I did just that and never regretted it. I did have a better war of it! I began to be very worried about my parents as, near where they live, there were the Canvey Island oil refineries – perfect targets for the German bombers. I persuaded them to evacuate into the countryside at Banstead. One of the girls in the office lived there. In the next door house was a lady who had a spare room to let, so my parents moved in. It was a mistake. The lady was most peculiar, into all sorts of weird beliefs and practices. Her garden was overrun with weeds. Mum, trying to be helpful, pulled up all the stinging nettles and burnt them. It was quite the wrong thing to do, as they were an important item in the lady’s diet. Mum and Dad moved out immediately and stayed with my Uncle Fred, a butcher who lived in Bromley. He had a huge house with plenty of spare rooms now his children had left home. At the weekends I stayed there as well. One Sunday I cycled from Bromley to Banstead to visit my friends. In the evening I returned but, owing to the blackout and the tiny light that my bike lamp was allowed, I completely lost my way. I was riding along a well made-up road when a group of Air Force Military Police rushed up, dragged me from my bike and took me into a building. There had been a scare that German spies were descending by parachute, complete with bicycles. Somehow I had cycled into the middle of Biggin Hill aerodrome. How I had passed the guards at the entrance I could not imagine. Perhaps the road sloped and I had silently free-wheeled in the dark past a guard who was not paying attention at the time. I was asked to identify myself. I used to keep my identity card and money in my gas mask case so I opened it and they were not there. The guards became more certain they had got a German spy and became more nasty. However, in the bag I found my Dad’s income tax papers. I had picked up his gas mask by mistake. Gradually it began to sink in that I might not be a spy. No German spy would carry my Dad’s income tax papers. Eventually they phoned Uncle Fred and the matter was cleared up. I was loaded up on my bike again and escorted, under armed guard, back to the aerodrome entrance. They instructed me how to find the road to Bromley and I went on my way. But for my Dad’s income tax papers I could have been shot as a German spy. Soon after, perhaps to distract me from my sorrows at the loss of Phyllis, a girl friend who had turned me down flat, I received my call-up papers from the Army. I was to be in the Royal Army Pay Corps. My friend De Havilland said to me, “You are the sort of man who falls off Westminster Bridge into the Thames and comes up with your pockets full of fish”. Certainly the Pay Corps had its attractions. It was basically a non-combatant corps, although I suppose it would have to fight if the occasion demanded it. To my delight I was told that my firm, Lambert Brothers, intended to pay me full salary all the time that I was in the Army – half now and the other half when I returned to them after the war. I was told to report to Winchester Barracks. There, all of us men in our intake were given blankets and three “biscuits”. Army “biscuits” are bed mattresses – very hard and uncomfortable but better than the cold floor. We were marched to the great other ranks’ mess hall for a meal. It is a tradition of the Army that the Orderly Officer of the day has to come into the mess and call out “Any complaints”. On this occasion, to our surprise, the Orderly Officer was none other than David Niven, the famous film star. At the outbreak of the war he had come over from the States and joined the Kings’ Royal Rifles Corps, reaching the rank of captain. He was probably the only Orderly Officer in the whole history of the British Army who, when he had called out “Any complaints”, was greeted by all the men’s stopping eating and staring at him. Early the next day we were loaded onto a train which set off, roughly in the direction of north. In fact, it meandered in all sorts of directions, stopping at times in isolated stations, sometimes even changing the locomotive. At one time, it stopped in Bristol and stayed still for two hours before proceeding on towards our final destination of Nottingham. It had taken the whole day to reach Nottingham after zig-zagging to and fro 2 throughout England. That evening we were allocated billets in private houses near the Pay Office. Five other men and I were in a corner-terraced house on the Hucknall Road. The owner, a bossy, rather simple little lady, had adapted her home as a lodging house by cramming as many beds into it as possible. There were, in fact, even three beds end-on along the upstairs landing. Her meals were primitive to say the least. We were given dehydrated milk instead of fresh milk. When the men complained her only answer was, “If it’s good enough for babies to drink, then it’s good enough for you.” The puddings were always stodgy packet chocolate or vanilla sponge with custard. They must have been the cheapest that she could have found and we hated them. Complaints made no impression on her. We were issued with our complete kit. The uniform was made of rough khaki cloth that was most uncomfortable to wear. The underwear was woollen and included long johns instead of the pants I was used to. I folded them away in my kit bag and continued to wear my civvy underwear. I packed up my suit and shirt and sent it home to my parents. Now costumed like soldiers, we were to be drilled like soldiers. Our drill NCO was a corporal. To our relief, he was a friendly, humorous, man. He told us that, in Civvy Street, he had been Lobby Ludd. This peculiar profession had kept him occupied throughout most of the summer seasons at the seaside. It was a competition sponsored by, I think, the News Chronicle paper. All he had to do was to walk up and down the promenades at seaside towns. The newspaper had printed daily articles giving vague descriptions of him and where he might be found. Readers were invited to try and spot him and, carrying a copy of the News Chronicle, to accost him with the statement, “You are Lobby Ludd, I hereby claim the News Chronicle prize.” This had to be said precisely, without mistakes or hesitation. The prize for correct challenges was the enormous sum of £5. Many perfectly innocent men were accosted as Lobby Ludd on promenades throughout the country. The only positive identification the newspaper gave was that Lobby wore a trilby hat and showed a photo of him with the hat pulled down obscuring his face. I never really latched on to his drill orders. My feet would not co-operate with Lobby’s commands. One day he shouted out at me, “What the hell do you think you are? A bloody greyhound?” I suppose that on his command, I would stand and ponder about it; and then when I had finally made up my mind what to do, I set off at a spurt, well after the other men. Rather like Corporal Jones in the TV show, “Dad’s Army”. I was soon enlisted as pianist (volunteer) in the Pay Corps band. The man in charge was an absolute moron, a staff sergeant, who told us that he had been trained as a bandmaster in the Army Music College, Kneller Hall. He wore a little badge to that effect on his sleeve. He was so stupid that he wore his bandmaster’s sash even for rehearsals. It soon became apparent to me that his knowledge of music was minimal. Once when he was trying to get us all started on his beat with the tune, “South of the Border down Mexico Way”, he failed to understand that the tune started on the third beat of the bar. As the first note was a quaver, he thought the tune started halfway through the third beat. I had the temerity to correct him. That was when I discovered that any senior officer, non-commissioned or otherwise, was always correct, even when he was wrong! He told me in no uncertain tones that he knew what he was talking about; that he was a trained Kneller Hall Bandmaster; and if I didn’t shut up he’d have me on a charge.

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