THE LEICESTERS IN SOMERSET

About six months before I joined the Tigers they had returned to UK  from Munster in Germany. Doniford Camp was to be their home for the next four years .The Camp had been built during the War and originally housed an artillery unit but became an evacuation centre for casualties returning from D Day in Normandy . The Camp was right on the edge  of the Bristol Channel and in stormy weather at high tide the waves would crash onto the battalion square .

Accommodation for soldiers was pretty spartan with fifteen soldiers to a Nissan hut with a coke stove at either end .Their furnishings consisted of a metal bed and locker and a wooden box for storage. They would have to make their way through the snow to the shower blocks . As Garrison Commander in Tidworth in the 1990s I was involved in the design of new barracks in Tidworth .Soldiers had their own individual rooms with en suite showers : it took us forty years to get to that point . Officers were better off but Doniford Camp was essentially basic . Later it became a Refugee Centre for Asians who were kicked out of Uganda by Idi Amin . It is now a holiday camp .

Like everyone else there was a rank structure but there seemed to be a three tier system when it came to experience : the commanding officer and the company commanders had  been in the World War ; senior captains had been in Korea and junior captains had fought EOKA in Cyprus .We unbemedalled subalterns were aware we were untested .The NCOs were not old  enough to have been in the War but many had been in Korea and Cyprus .

My first company commander , John Parsons, , had been in a cavalry regiment I think but joined No 1 SAS and at 19 was parachuted into France to fight with the Resistance . However , he said he got more involved in fights between the Resistance and the Maquis than fighting the Germans and eventually had to be extracted . He was then dropped into Norway and at the end of the War was involved in sending back to Russia some of their nationals who had fought for the Germans .
The second in command was Tom Hiney who had won an MC in the Congo whilst serving with troops from Ghana. Fortunately for us Tom was a bachelor and had a small car.If it had not been for him we subalterns in B Coy would have had a pretty dull social life .

The Camp was about three miles from a little fishing village called Watchet with a high harbour wall.We were equidistant from two towns :Taunton a market town and Minehead where there was a Butlins Holiday Camp. Officers tended to go to Taunton and the soldiers to Minehead.

The soldiers always manage to sniff out totty but did adopt some strange names for the girls of easy virtue like the Wiveliscombe Witch and the Minehead Mauler .They did not get payed that much but  cider was cheap in Somerset .

Some soldiers did marry Somerset girls but not the officers.Although we were a source of bachelors and did get invited to lots of parties and hunt balls I think the County Set would rather marry a rich farmer who went hunting rather than an impoverished officers.

Not really sure the " swinging sixties " ever got as far west as rural Somerset but we did play Beatles records at parties and knew how to do the latest dance The Twist .

Oct 1962 was the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis . Although , we were aware of this at the time I do not recall being aware of impending Armageddon .We were never put on any special alert . In fact our biggest problem was coping with that severe winter and we were deployed to dig out railway sidings .

One thing that did slightly perturb me was the number of officers who seemed to want to get away. In my first week a captain who had been an instructor at Sandhurst said hullo and goodbye as he was off to join a cavalry regiment having been poached by my company commander at Sandhurst . Another was off to the Parachute Regiment and even Tom Hiney asked me when was I applying for a secondment . This was essentially about young men wanting excitement . Some officers were content to serve in UK  and enjoy Cricket and the local pub but others wanted more. Our own little war somewhere !


I suppose I wanted something more than rural England . Eureka it was all to change and the thing that sparked it off was a revolt against the Sultan in Brunei .

As it turned out the Queens Own Highlanders , Royal Marines and Gurkha's put down the revolt and the rebels fled to Indonesia (Kalimantan ).This eventually led to an undeclared war against Inodonesia which lasted from 1962 to 1964 which is highlighted in that book called Confrontation .

To continue with the Tigers, there we were in Somerset all geared up to go . Some books have  impressed me , one is a book by Adair who talks about three interlocking circles : Task , Team Maintenance and Individual  Needs . Somehow in rural Somerset by suddenly being given a positive task there was magic in the air .Probably different if you were married with two kids and had been to Korea and Cyprus but for us young bachelors this was it .

Now comes an amusing saga . As part of the Indian Army system units had Contactors, under today's jargon they are Facilities Management Companies ( Ask Cheney all about it ). Well these contractors did everything for a unit : Cooks ,cleaners, Mess staff , barber , tailors they even brought tea for the soldiers in bed in the morning.

Well as we sat in Somerset with bayonets fixed ready to deploy the Commanding Officer got a letter from this Indian Contractor : " Honorable Sahib you will remember I looked after you in Hong Kong before you deployed to Korea in 1952 . I understand you are not going immediately to Borneo or Malaya but instead to HK . You will be in Erskine Camp and Sai Kunk Camp and  I will be there to meet you ." Two days later the MOD informed the CO that was the plot .
The system worked well. Eight years later we had the same contractor in Bahrain. This was before the age of computers and these contractors kept their accounts in leather bound ledgers in copperplate writing .  Commanding C Coy the Contractor came to me and said you know Mickey Mouse and Roy Rodger still owe me 8 HK Dollars. Soldiers frequently gave false names when getting credit .

That was it Christmas leave and then off to Hong Kong .Roll on 1963 at least I am no longer a teenager !