REMEMBERING THOSE OFFICERS
As Remembered By Roy Cordall
When I retired from full-time employment in 1993, one of my colleagues referred to the fact that in each of my five working situations, the word “Officer” featured – a National Service NCO, a Police Constable, a Security Officer, and Education Welfare Officer, and for the last 25 of those years, a Probation Officer – a situation, if not rare, at least unusual.
It prompted me to think in more detail about my National Service contact with Officers – minimal in the induction process, more often in the next step in the RASC (Clerk or Driver) Training and thereafter at ones first posting or at Buller Barracks, Aldershot, if you had an overseas posting. However, the real influences at this stage was the RSM, the CSM’s and Drill Sergeants and Corporals, usually little contact with Officers, other than at inspections or Pay Parade.
In the Middle East, all RASC Clerks went through an acclimatisation and selection process at Gebel Maryam and I was fortunate enough to be posted to GHQ Group and be allocated to a section named AG3C at GHQ MELF – broadly speaking we dealt with “Manpower”and in the Nissen Hut (one of five) in which I worked, we focused on the posting of Officers to Military Missions and Headquarters Units, but also of other ranks to units which were “Support” but not “Fighting”.
The CO was a Major in the Royal Engineers, with a W.O.I in the RASC as Chief Clerk. In Hut 3 there was a Major in the Gordon Highlanders, and a Captain in the Royal Corps of Signals and one from the Rifle Brigade, a Sergeant Chief Clerk from the Lancs Fusiliers, a Corporal and three other ranks (including me) in the RASC. Apart from the four lowest ranked staff, all the others were Regulars and had served through the Second World War – our Major having won the Military Cross at El Alamein.
The principal duties of the Officers was to assess other Officers to establish their ability to undertake specific posts in a wide variety of locations in the Middle East – a task requiring considerable personal skills. As I and my colleagues typed their reports we began to understand how to think as they did and how to assess individuals and deal with complexities.
I am sure that most readers will have personal recollections of Officer/Other Rank contact but I still vividly remember one which occurred in the first week of my posting to GHQ – as a newcomer to the Hut, I became the “go for” – an errand-boy for menial tasks. The Major called me to his desk, gave me a sealed envelope with no writing on it, and told me to deliver it to a Hut where I was to give it to the Chief Clerk, who would be telephoned to expect me. My Chief Clerk then told me the walking directions to the Hut, adding that the Hut would neither be numbered nor have any other outward sign of its occupants. After a half mile walk I arrived at a hut identical to the one I had just left, except that it looked in pristine condition, the woodwork and windows shone in the bright sunshine.
I found the entrance, walked in and found the Chief Clerk, who indicated that I was expected and that the letter must be handed to the person who was in his office at the opposite end of the hut seperated by a partition wall. On entering the office I found myself facing a huge highly polished walnut desk, behind which sat an equally shining Guards Officer (only much later did I discover his identity) – Brigadier Sir Algernon George William Heber-Percy – one of the most Senior Officers in Egypt at that time. I marched the few paces to the desk, saluted him and handed the letter over. I was thanked, I saluted him once more, about-turned and marched out (need I add – sweating profusely) and returned to my hut. Only many years later did I find their link – their respective families were listed in Burke’s Peerage – they were both Social Equals and personal friends.
My Major, who later became the Colonel-in-Chief of the Gordon Highlanders, was the Captain of the GHQ Cricket Team – when he learned that I played cricket at a reasonable level at school, after a trial game, I was selected to play in the first game of the season and was fortunate enough to have a good game and played in every match for two seasons (apart from a period of hospitalisation when my appendix ruptured). The team usually consisted of the Major, seven other lower ranking Officers, a quite small Scots Warrant-Officer (First Class) in the Signals Corps as the wicket keeper, myself and another ‘other rank’ whose name was Edser – another bowler but not quite in the “Bedser” calibre of his Country. All were treated equally, whatever their status or ability, including an RASC Captain who resembled Dennis Compton in his approach to cricket – during one inter unit cup game, he went in at No. 4 with the score at nought for two, his first nine scoring stokes all went for four and he made eighty plus in about 30 minutes. His obituary in 1997 revealed his sporting prowess – he played rugby for The Old Blues, Surrey, London Counties and the Army and cricket for the RAFC and RCT (captaining both), the Incogniti and Free Foresters.
Although I have highlighted Officer contact, I have not forgotton the fellowship and friendship of all my Service colleagues with whom I served or came into contact with, and those whose contributions to our Newsletter continue to constantly remind me of my National Service – God Bless you all.