PLA

I started work in August 1945 as a trainee clerk for the Port of London Authority at the princely sum of £90 per annum. To become a fully fledged clerical officer I had two years training working in all the London Docks and at the Head Office in the City. The Port of London Authority (PLA) had the jurisdiction of the River Thames from Teddington to the Nore (mouth of the river), including all the dock systems (London and St. Katherine’s, Surrey Commercial, East and West India, Millwall, Royal, and Tilbury). In my time there were over 100,000 men employed handling 35 million tons of cargo. All except the Tilbury Docks, 26 miles downstream, were finally closed in 1980 and have now been redeveloped - the Royal Albert, and King George Docks are now London’s City Airport, and the India Docks are now the Canary Wharf Development Scheme.

My first position was in a tea warehouse of the Surrey Commercial Docks, where the storage, sampling and testing of tea was carried out - no shortage of tea for tea breaks etc. After my two year training and an examination (wages, labour, import and export etc.) I become a Clerical Officer working in the Import and Export Ledger section of the Royal Docks. To get to work would be a tram ride to Woolwich, crossing the river by the Free Ferry or under the river by the subway, and then a trolley-bus ride to the dock gates, or I would cycle to work, later by motorcycle.

RM Depot Deal

My employment with the PLA was interrupted by my National Service engagement with the Royal Marines. After the war every male at the age of eighteen was called up to do two years with one of the Services, although some were deferred till later. Part of the way through my service it was extended to 27 months engagement. I applied to join the Royal Navy but found out when I received my enlistment papers, that I was to report to the RM Depot at Deal in Kent. I arrived at Deal on the 12 August 1947 to find it was the Royal Marines barracks and not the Royal Navy. There were about 70 of us who arrived that day and we were split into two squads, the 972 and the 973 Squads. I was in 972 Squad and given the Registered No. PO/X: 126693 (PO for a Portsmouth rating). We were strangers from all walks of life and from every part of the British Isles, the only thing we had in common was our birthdays, all falling in May 1929. Whereas in the Army, Navy and the Air Force recruits had only about six weeks training before passing out, it was twelve months before we passed out as fully-fledged marines. We were 3 months at Deal drilling, then more drilling under Corporal (later Sergeant) George Ashley who knocked us into shape.

Our drill instructor Sergeant George Ashley went on to fight in the Korean War and was wounded in the leg. Then we were sent for fifteen weeks to the Infantry Training Centre at Lympstone in Devon and six weeks at the R.M. Commando School, where a lot of our training was done with rifle, bren-gun and 2 inch mortar on Dartmoor in the middle of a very cold winter. On one night-exercise I was firing a PIAT anti-tank gun when it misfired, dropping the projectile just in front of our dug-out. Luckily only one marine was slightly injured, but it could have been much worse.

RM Barracks Eastney

From there we went for ten weeks to the R.M. Barracks at Eastney, Portsmouth, to train in naval gunnery. Once aboard a frigate wallowing with its engines stopped at sea, gunnery practice had to be curtailed, as I think everyone except me was sea-sick with the ship rolling so much. We had two weeks aboard HMS. ROYALIST in Portsmouth Dockyard and our training was over. Eventually the Royalist was sold to the New Zealand Navy and I found out later that my nephew Paul Bishop’s wife Dawn was christened aboard this ship at Auckland. Both 972 and 973 National Service Squads and several Continuous Service Squads “passed out” together at Eastney with the band playing.

After that we were split up and spread around, going to different ships. My first duty with several others was aboard the cruiser HMS KENYA lying at Sheerness in Kent. This ship was being “mothballed” (taken out of commission) and we were armed with chipping hammers and had to crawl into the boilers, chipping away at all the pipes every day for four months. It was then decided that National Service personnel could be posted for sea service, in fact, we were the first National Servicemen to do so. Some of us were posted to the North Atlantic Fleet aboard the battleships HMS. DUKE of YORK and VANGUARD while others like myself were posted to the Mediterranean Fleet. This was more like what I wanted and I really enjoyed this latter part of my service.