were a farce. I had made up my mind to join the Navy, but the military interviewer - a retired Colonel who seemed very deaf and whose expression was one of contempt for those being interviewed - simply told me that I would be drafted in to the Royal Corps of Signals as a driver/operator. As I couldn't drive and knew nothing about wireless telegraphy I was not particularly enthusiastic about this decision. Soon afterwards, I received a letter enclosing a day's pay (2/-) and a railway warrant asking me to report to Fenham Barracks in Newcastle upon Tyne. This I duly did, and stood in a queue of young men who had been similarly bidden. We waited for many hours. It was cold - early December - and when it was growing dark we were admitted to the barracks. Lists of names were read out and mine was in one of the last and shortest - only four of us I An aging Corporal told us we would be going later that night to Oxfordshire to join the 50th Divisional Signals. As we walked to the railway station through the blacked-out streets, carrying our suitcases, I asked the Corporal if it was possible that we could get some food. He said that we would be fed when the train stopped at York. It did not stop, of course, and to this day I have a profound dislike of York station.

We arrived at some remote halt many hours later and set off in the dawn light to walk the five miles to the Divisional location. By this time we were not only exhausted but ravenously hungry. Fortunately, on arrival at the camp site, we were given breakfast, 1'eft to wash and shave and report to the Commanding Officer at 9 a.m. He looked at us with some disdain, and as I was at the end of the line he addressed me first. The conversation remains in my memory to this day. "What were you in civilian life?" he said. "A school- master" I replied. "Good God," he said, "have we got down to this already? Anyway," he continued, "can you read and write?" Flabbergasted, I mumbled "Yes Sir." The other three went through a similar interrogation. There was another teacher, a Clerk to the County Court, and an electrician. We were soon made to realise that we now counted for nothing and we had entered a world where rational thought and behaviour did not exist. The final words of the