To War With The Bays: 81 – Down On The Farm
...To be fair, it was a tremendous job to demobilise hundreds of thousands of troops, and in the meantime no one knew what to do with us. Then they decided to send 250 of us, including myself, Harold Balson and Ted Ryan, to Lincolnshire, to pick potatoes and sugar beet...
Jack Merewood, now eager to be demobbed, becomes an enforced farm labourer.
To read earlier chapters of Jack’s vivid account of his wartime experiences please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/to_war_with_the_bays/
Then my leave was over, and it was back to Catterick, where I arrived late, as I should have changed trains in York but fell asleep and awoke to find myself in Newcastle! Within a day or two Ronnie and Ted were here, just we three survivors from the old 33 squad.
Six years ago, and we felt we'd never been away because now we knew we were back among the real soldiers - MPs on the barrack gate and important-looking little sergeants strutting around shout¬ing: 'On Parade.'...
'Get that tunic buttoned up.'...
'Put that cigarette out, no smoking within twenty yards of a vehicle.'
We hated the barrack rooms and kit inspections. All we wanted now was to be out of the Army for good. My boss, Mr Whitaker, wanted me out too. He wanted me back to work in the bakehouse, but of course the Army wasn't listening.
To be fair, it was a tremendous job to demobilise hundreds of thousands of troops, and in the meantime no one knew what to do with us. Then they decided to send 250 of us, including myself, Harold Balson and Ted Ryan, to Lincolnshire, to pick potatoes and sugar beet. Ronnie was left at Catterick, where he now had an office job.
We were billeted in a hall in Spilsby, a quiet little town, which at least had a cinema, and I finally got to see Bathing Beauty! Some¬times we went to a nearby RAF camp to play in whist and solo drives, and most weekends we could get passes to come home. In no time at all I knew the hitchhiking route off by heart.
A typical day - 25 October: 'Weather been wet, but out working today taking up and cutting sugar beets. Oh what a job, thought I'd never straighten my back! Finished at 4 p.m. and got 7/-!'
One day Harold and I hitched a lift to Skegness, thirteen miles away, but it rained and the sea-front was deserted. There were still barbed wire defences around, and it was all a pretty depressing sight. We agreed that the day would have been better spent playing cards in our hut.
