This is a story from the Army Apprentices School, Arborfield, which was not far from Wokingham in Berkshire. I started my soldiering there on 15 January, 1959. It was a memorable first day because on the way there, through a window of the London to Wokingham train I saw a real, live cow and that evening, in the cookhouse, I had a pint *** smashed over my head. Anyway, this poem relates to the passage of information and the dangers of misinformation, and in a way is relative to my first day.

(While waiting for a train)

A bombardier and corporal were arguing the toss
About a job they had to do, about who should be boss.
The corporal said 'it should be me. You know the way we train.
My being in the Infantry means that I have the brain
To make sure job gets properly done, and doing it is really fun.
That being said - this job, you know, we really ought to flick it.
Would you believe they have us down to run a fire-piquet?

Replied his mate, the bombardier, 'even if it's cavalier,
I'm the one that fires off gun so I should get to have the fun.
And working the Apprentice School appears to me to be quite cool.
These AT's., they know their stuff, and work they'd never think to cuff.
Why, one even told my daughter, ‘on fire you never use hot water.'
Perplexed, his mate then asked 'why not, use h2o when it is hot?'
'Stands to reason' said his mate (they stood at Railway Station),
'Hot water on a burning fire just ups the conflagration'.

The two both spent that weekend off at home and in the yard.
Concluding individually the task was just too hard.
And so, selectively, they chose (so soon as they got back)
To do the work at Arborfield a smartly dressed lance-jack.
A Fusileer with bright cockade, four GEC's and bright
(though he said he'd had to give up two for getting in a fight).
He drilled the boys of Arborfield exactly as he orter
Whilst urging them to 'never, ever, ever use hot water'.

The Influence of Arborfield which is still On My Conscience

It's the guest room at Dun Jipping and I'm quaffing tepid tea
From a chipped pint *** with AAS that someone's passed to me.
And although I've tasted better tea I really can't complain
About this brew I'm drinking now, I think I should explain.
When young and given jankers (seven days and never less),
The powers that be would always make us work in officers' mess.
And if, while there, we'd feel the need to go and have a ***
We'd take off lid to tea *** and urinate in their tea.
And the cook would laugh and swirl it round, the steward serve it up,
Then he'd come back to kitchen and tell us who'd had cup.
But that was years and years ago, we squaddies then but brutes
And here no one's on jankers, and we don't take in recruits,
Thus this tea that I am sipping, uncontaminated tea,
Might be strong and tepid but I know it's free of ***.

In Memory of My Beginning
We of fitter gun were harassed in our youth by the file, the use of which is an art. It’s not just rubbing the file back and forth. Every stroke should count and move you one step closer to a smooth, polished finish without gouges or abrasion marks. Just like growing up really; like life. Hence:

At Arborfield, remember where we learned to use a file
On a wicked lump of mild steel they gave us for our own?
Reduce its size they told us, and that without a smile.
So we set-to with hands that ached, stiff fingers and a groan.
Two inches square it had to be within a 'thou' or two.
Push fitted through an aperture, eight differing ways all told.
And by miracle (craft) that metal was transformed by me and you
With a Four Inch smooth and lots of chalk, and even though now old
I recall as though I were still there, bent over at the bench, and still
Unsure of what my life might be, what even I should dare
With this feeler gauge and set square, scraper, tap and drill,
The which to shape this wicked lump into the perfect square.
The perfect square, what a hope; that shape for which we then aspired.
Compelled, it's true reluctantly at times but which by none the less
Were laid foundations for the lives we've subsequently had;
And the which by some admired.

A Childhood Memory
Early Training for Arborfield

I used to bicycle to school when I was young and on the go.
And in Winter time I mind it wasn't nice.
We kids, we'd ride our bikes through slush and often through the snow
On surfaces made treacherous by ice.

I'd put my bike together with parts filched from ******* pit.
Parts I'd garnered, here and there, to take back to my home.
I washed them first in kerosene, then soaked in oil each bit.
Once assembled, then the World was mine to roam.

Although it looked quite battered and it rattled every ride,
And the wheels, they wobbled and it had a squeak.
That bike was mine, all mine, and if you classify by pride
I'd reckon RollsRoyce wouldn't stand a chance, well, so's to speak.

But the brakes on that bike they never worked,
And its metal handle-bars were bare
And in Winter it was pretty scary stuff,
Because of brakes, and ice on roads, and never having gloves to wear.
.
And at school (with bike stowed in racks) I'd join the queue,
My runny nose and hurting ears; numbed hands and finger tips quite blue
With cold; shivering before the class room door.
Waiting for my turn at taps and running water, and for my hands to thaw.