Joining up
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Joining up
From the Barwicker No. 103
September 2011
(This is a continuation of Sidney Bunks′ recollections featured in The Barwicker No. 102)
By now the war was on. I decided to join up and went to try to get into the air force hut the man [ went to see wasn't there so i decided to join the army instead. I told the recruiting officer that I was a lorry driver and that 1 had worked in a quarry. As soon as I said that, he pricked up his ears and said. ″Skipton Rock are forming their own company and tha′ me joining up have to have three years driving experience.″ The other quarry men were all working for local councils such as Shipley, Keighley and Skipton etc. Charlie Bulmer from Aberford went with me into what became the 125 Quarrying Company.
Army Training
[ joined the army on June 4th 1940 and we were sent to Skegness, Charlie Bulmer was also in the same regiment and although we were the nearest to Skegness of all the men who were to be in that regiment, we were the last ones to get there because we took the afternoon train. Everyone else had taken the 8am train and had all been there since the morning! They all cheered when we finally got there!
We were billeted in hotels which had been evacuated for the war. The first one we went to was full, so they put us in another one by ourselves. At 8.30 pm the sirens went. Charlie and I had never heard the sirens before but the warden told us where to go to the shelters. We jumped up. pulled the door shut behind us and went down to the air raid shelter. After half an hour the all-clear sounded and we went back to the hotel. When we got there we realised that we were locked out. It was a Yale lock and we′d just pulled the door shut and left the key-inside! A warden carne and said, ″What's the matter lads?″ We told him we were locked out. He said. ″Don't worry. The joiner lives two or three doors away.″ All the joiner brought was a screw driver. He just put it in the latch of the Yale lock and we were in!
Next morning we had breakfast then paraded and were counted up. We were all there. Then we marched down to the railway station and went to Halifax to a place called Shibden Hall.
Then we were all loaded on to the train again and went down to Colchester in Essex. There they sorted us out into about twelve men to a party and our job was bomb disposal. We had to dig the bombs out after the navy had disarmed them and made them safe. Then we had to clean them up and fill in the hole. My job was driving. I collected timber and any thing else they needed.
One of the jobs was digging out aluminium land mines. They had an engine in the front and when you heard that engine stop you had to get down quick because it was about to fall and explode.
Quite a lot of them didn't explode. The navy would come and take the detonators out. They made a big hole in the aluminium and scraped the stuff out. Then we got wood from anywhere we could and made a big bonfire round it and set it on fire. The flames could be ten to fifteen feet high until it eventually burnt itself out.
Next day, after we had done the first one, being inquisitive I went to have a look at the result and saw just a big sheet of aluminium. So I said to the lads, ″Try to fold it up and tramp if down and see if we can get it in the van.″ So they said, ″What do you want to do that for?″ I said, ″Never you mind. Just do it!″
They got it on the van and about three of us set off to a little village nearby and asked if there was a scrap merchant anywhere. We discovered there was one in the next village so we went to the scrap yard and saw the boss. I said to him, ″Is this any good to you?″ Well, he jumped in the air and said, ″Great! How much do you want for it?″ I said, ″Give us what it's worth. ″ So we agreed a price and then we all shared the money out! The bombs were just burnt out and left so we got quite a few and took them to the scrap merchant. You should have seen the lads;″£:2 for you and £3 for you...″ That was our life - our pocket money!
We did that until the end of January and then we moved back to Halifax. We were there about three weeks and then we moved to Skipton, working for Skipton Rock. The foreman from Skipton Rock had been made the sergeant and was in charge of all the lads who had worked there at the quarry.
We stayed there about eighteen months doing anything that was needed, mending roads etc. but the drivers like me didn't always have enough to do.
However, they had an old lorry in a shed and I got on well with the foreman at the quarry. He only had one arm and a hook instead of a hand. My best pal, Harold, lived at Embsay, about two miles from Skipton and so every night we borrowed this lorry from the foreman and went home to his mother′s. All the girls in Embsay used to come down to his house each evening and it was a real to do! Harold′s mother was called Mrs Batchelor and she had a greengrocer′s shop in the village. Harold′s brother was a prisoner of war at the time and his wife worked in the shop to help out.
One day, Mrs Batchelor said, ″Why don't you bring your wife and daughter over to stay? We've got plenty of room.″ So the next weekend when I went home, I brought Hilda and Margaret back to Embsay. Hilda joined in the fun every night and Harold′s sister-in law looked after Margaret.
On the 1st December I was called to the office. They told me I was going home. My boss, Mr Gillet, wanted me back because he had a big job on. So I was sent home on my birthday and worked for the Aberford Motor Company again until the end of January. Then they called me back into the army.
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