Month: March 2025

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In the late nineteen-fifties it was quite something as a young man to give up my science subjects in a soon to be set up University in Regent Street, London. Offhandedly, as it were, to join the British Army.

I reasoned it was something I had to do.

Leaving behind a small rural parochial village, home to my parents, brother and sister, for a bigger landscape, and joining untold numbers of like-minded men to be garrisoned in Catterick Camp was hardly likely to be a holiday.

It was bleak midwinter when we struggled out of our beds and into a run for ablutions, to don denims and then make the parade ground where we stood to stiff attention. We then suffered in silence to the drill sergeant’s outpourings of coarse and profane words which adorned the soldier’s new English vocabulary.

From then on, it was to be drill, drill and more drill with occasional stops for a cig and a breather in brass monkey weather. Now and again, a NMFI break for a cuppa and another fag and a riff perhaps of “Something in your mind cannot be denied …. smoke gets in your eyes.”

One day I was found wanting performing a tricky drill piece. We had to ground rifles, straighten up and then retrieve them from a squat position. Of course, I tumbled over during its execution as a small smile crossed my face.

‘Sergeant, that man there? Take him to the guard room, on the double quick march.’ I was shown the austere cells of the guard room and threatened with custody if I ever as much as smiled again during drill practise.

I will say that I joined the army at a moment of transition. Whether it was a favourable or unfavourable time is hard to say. For instance, if you liked the use of guns I was in the army when Sten guns were dropped in preference for new Sterling machine guns, for which I was incidentally hailed as a marksman. And old style Second World War .303 Lee Enfield manual rifles were substituted for automatic Belgian FN’s. Let alone that metal studded boots were replaced by rubber studded boots!

And cleaning brasses of uniforms and such forth was discontinued as all brasses contained stay bright ingredient.

This all meant more changes in drill practise. At any rate whatever the kit and weaponry we marched up and down the parade ground in all weathers ad infinitum.

Of course, there is so much more I could say about army life but I need to cut it short.

Until next time.

(Published in Shenley Village Matters – Issue 33, Page 37, Spring 2025)

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I live in not so much as a one horse town as a one shop village. So it came as a great surprise to me that, my other newly arrived residents included the small lithe looking Tom Cruise, of Mission Impossible fame, and the equally illustrious, willowy attractive Nicole Kidman.

For such time as they were making a film called Eyes Wide Shut they had taken up residence in High Canons estate, just a mile from my front door. Whilst Nicole seemed to take a back seat in their new surroundings, it was Tom who took to a bicycle with such alacrity that you could see him tanking through our by-ways and highways with what looked like glorious abandon.

He was not averse to stopping off at our only shop, equally serving as post office, in our quaint backwater surrounds, yet on the periphery of London.

However, this tranquil setting with its two hundred acre grounds hosting numerous sheep and a backdrop of lakes, surrounded by woods, was the ideal setting for the two stars. From this Elysian paradise it would only take them ten minutes or so to be driven safely to Britain’s second Hollywood, namely, Elstree Film Studios.

As the film progressed it seemed that while Tom became familiar with his surroundings he was at his best whilst Nicole remained more reticent. The star of Mission Impossible and other great films lost any inhibitions he may have had and was in his element, more gregarious and light hearted. A sense of freedom pervaded him in a place with such a history, dating back to the time when it was a nunnery.

It was on one such light hearted occasion that he bounded out of High Canons to fully introduce himself to a great friend of mine, running the motor mower over the fine front lawn.

‘I’m Tom!’, he enthusiastically blurted out.

My friend, stopped the mower and stood back observantly, and within an instant replied:

‘I was wondering what all the fuss was about?’.

I’m pleased to meet you Tom; of course, l’ve heard a hell of a lot about you. Tom Jones!’ Well of course, Tom Cruise fell about laughing, taking it all in good sport.

Needless to say, I don’t care what anyone says now, or in the future, about these supposedly overpaid film stars, but more especially in the case of Tom Cruise. For me, and all residents in our village, we found him to be an extremely nice guy.

(Published in Shenley Village Matters – Issue 32, Page 28, Autumn 2024)

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There was a great deal of disquiet evidenced in the parish, when it was first mooted that a mental hospital was going to be built on the doorstep of their small rural village.

Well, the hospital was to contain a couple of thousand inmates staffed by five hundred nurses who were to be drawn from the four corners of the British Isles and eventually, even further afield.

It put shivers up the spines of not a few people.

On looking back, one can, as it were, witness the first elements of the ‘not in my backyard’ approach.

Along with this of course, was the controversy caused by Cecil Frank Raphael’s sudden, and to some extraordinary, decision to up sticks and sell Porters Park Estate, of which he was the owner, to Middlesex County Council, by which means they were able to establish the hospital on its grounds.

At the time, rumour abounded that he had sold up in umbrage at the Parish Council’s decision, of which he was a member: the Council went against his advice to have trust houses built, rather than a memorial to commemorate the dead of The First World War.

Whatever the feelings in the village, the building of the ‘model hospital’ got the go ahead.Work started in 1934 and the first unit was opened by King George V and Queen Mary on the 31st of May in that self-same year.

It was not to be too long into its stride when the Second World War took place, necessitating the building of air raid shelters, the digging of trenches and the installation of a fire service, along with the hospital taking in the casualties of war, and in the event, being also classed as a military hospital.

During those dangerous years, the hospital suffered from a few fire bombs being dropped on its premises

Despite these attacks, the hospital post war made a number of medical advances.However, the war effort had left the country pretty well impoverished and this was reflected in the patient’s personal clothing. Due to the lack of funds it was not unusual to see shell-shocked patients somewhat unkempt, with an uneasy gait shuffling through the village with shrunken trousers at half mast, or females with loose ill-fitting dresses that had seen too much time in the laundry press.

Societal changes brought urgency to new thinking on the institution of the hospital, in particular its vast expenditure.

Into the picture, at this time, came the eminent, not to say unorthodox psychiatrist, Dr R. D. Laing, with his forward thinking views, who operated from the Tavistock Clinic London.

Now, one of his disciples, Dr David Cooper, took up the reins of reinventing the purpose of the hospital; again not without controversy.

His aim was to create smaller units of patients who were self- sufficient, to exist in ‘half way’ houses as a stepping stone towards independent living in the wider community.

(Published in Shenley Village Matters – Issue 32, Page 27, Autumn 2024)

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Many were those in the boxing world claimed Tommy Farr, our very own heavyweight, beat the brown bomber, Joe Louis in a world championship bout in America.

No need to name the date, for it was held at the time of bare stairs, no carpets on the floors, and cold draughts through half open doors.

I was living in a Shenley nurse’s cottage in North avenue with others. It was not an easy gig, relieved only by the arrival of newcomers from Dartford, the Lucia’s.

The father and son were both alike, apart from age. Today they would have earned the sobriquet Godzilla. Of such girth, they would frighten anyone, within or without

Despite the son, Billy’s, wayward proclivities, I made a mate with him, that’s what kid’s do. Of course, he towered way above me, being six and a half foot tall. Bill lived in Shenley’s nursing cottages, down the hill from Black Lion in North Avenue.

Now, Billy’s old man had secured a job in the local mental hospital by Shenley, above the hill, alongside our quaint old village, not twenty miles out of London.

Being days of non PC it was referred too, indelicately as the ‘loony bin’, and those confined, called ‘lunatics’.

It was not long before I learned that Bill senior would take himself on occasion to the Thomas A’ Beckett pub in the Mile End Road, to spar with our very own British heavyweight champion, Tommy Farr.

At the same time, Bill junior was taking on well bronzed fighters in the boxing booth at Barnet Fair, to earn a mean five pounds.

Times so bad in those days it was not unusual to find Bill’s dad in his potting shed filtering blackcurrant juice or such like, through his old aertex pants, flaring up on our chivvying him.

Yet, I believe those hard times, sharpened one’s senses, to strive for the eternal goa of making money, making Bill’s dad fearless, to take on the mighty Tommy Farr, in the boxing ring. No small feat.

It had its consequences. Arriving on Bill’s ward as Shenley Charge Nurse the staff would note his dishevelment, his punished, bruised body. It being, more black then blue, and say, ‘he’s been at the Beckett again, Farr’s given him a right seeing too, a real pasting, bet he belted him from one corner of ring to the other!

(Published in Shenley Village Matters – Issue 31, Page 35, Summer 2024)