Backwords: Weekly War Games
Mike Shaw writes about his childhood involvment in war games of the serious kind.
My war wounds were a horrifying sight.
Shattered arms and legs, bloody gaping holes -- not to mention terrible internal injuries and concussion. I had the lot.
Even that master winner of wars, John Wayne, couldn’t match my battle scars.
They weren’t real of course. But, just like Wayne, I had to pretend they were.
Although I was only six years old when Hitler’s war started, my tender years didn’t stop my mother roping me in for her war games.
The pretend battles were played by the grown-ups nearly every Sunday morning. Dad’s Army -- officially called the Home Guard -- were the real stars of the weekly epics. The supporting cast included policemen, firemen, air raid wardens, stretcher-bearers, doctors and nurses.
That was where my mother came in. Marsden didn’t have an infirmary, so they did the next best thing and converted the church hall into a makeshift mini-hospital.
Its official title was the first aid post. And, because of her nursing experience, my mother was given a full-time job in charge of the place.
She always took her obligations very seriously. So when they called for volunteers to act as battle casualties I was volunteered.
I didn’t go at all willingly. But my mother was firm in her view that as leader of the “angels” she must offer up her young.
One of my older brothers got out of it by being appointed as official messenger, complete with bicycle. While he was whizzing around the village on his bike the rest of us trooped into the sandbagged Parochial Hall on Sundays like lambs to the slaughter.
It took ages to make us up for the part. Sometimes I finished up with both arms in splints, walking like a clockwork soldier. At other times, I resembled an Egyptian mummy, swathed in bandages almost from head to foot.
If we were walking wounded we had to limp into the screened-off treatment area. The more serious cases were carried in on a stretcher. That was when I shut my eyes and conjured up visions of being a boy king, borne aloft before adoring subjects waiting to attend to my every whim.
There was certainly no shortage of volunteer nurses. Very pretty and attentive they were, too. A pity I was too young to appreciate it all.
At the start of my long casualty stint they used to come round and offer me cups of tea. But, at the age of six, it was adding insult to injury. So eventually I persuaded them to give me orange squash instead, although it was strictly against doctor’s orders.
The weekend war games did produce some real casualties. From what I overhead from my prone position on the treatment table, there were more wounded men sometimes than if they’d been in a real war. But I don’t remember seeing many of them at the first aid post. More gossip -- clearly not intended for my ears -- said it was a very sore point. The word was that they didn’t trust the first aid post personnel so they shipped them off to the infirmary at Huddersfield instead.
Like the nurses who tended our make believe wounds, the Home Guard took the war games very seriously. They seemed to be swarming all over the village and the surrounding countryside.
Occasionally, the enthusiasm of our Dad’s Army ran away with them. Either that or they took advantage of the situation to have a good laugh at somebody else’s expense.
I remember watching a couple of Home Guards lying in wait for “the enemy” in bushes alongside the main Manchester Road. When a car came along they yelled in triumph while bombing it with sandbags.
Unlucky fellas they were. The car happened to belong to the local doctor, who was among the Home Guard’s top brass. He viewed his dented roof in stunned amazement and had the two culprits marched away under armed guard. I have often wondered what horrible punishment they had to endure.
It seemed quite remarkable to me then how the khaki-clad hordes always finished their Sunday morning exercises dead on the stroke of noon. Now I realise it wasn’t just coincidence that the battles ended just as the pubs were opening.
As everybody now knows, the first aid post was never used for its intended purpose. A good thing, too. But it still lives on vividly in my memory, not just for my performances under the blanket. Many’s the time I’ve sat with my mother at the start of her night shift. Watching the church mice at play. In my book their antics beat the war games all ends up.
