On the lighter side of it I wrote down 10 pages all what my Dad had told me . Spoke to the R.E. Museum and they said I was a lucky person that my my dad had told me things ,could I send them a copy along with all his photos of the reg etc .

On a visit home the train stopped at Hartlepool my dad was asleep , so his brother James left him on the train and jumped off . My dad awoke to see it go past his home village and on to Newcastle upon Tyne . He had to catch another train back to Hartlepool .


While stationed in Gib on a hot sunny day a full platoon of men lay naked on the beack , when a priest and some nuns came riding past on horses . " They did not bat an eye lid ", said my dad , " even after the rude comments ".

After the end of the war while in control of German prisoners walking . My dad said the roads where filled Germans on German turned off the road and started to walk over a field. my dad thought he must be near his home and is eager to get back to his loved onesby taking a short cut . A Polish soldier lifted his rifle to take aim . A British captain put his pistol to the Poles head and said " the wars over now " , the Polish soldier lowered his rifle.

My dad and a fellow sapper laying booby traps and defusing German ones as they made their way up a street in Germany . They went into one house and set to work . Then out and into the street and into the next house to do the same . Half way up the street as they came out of the door onto the street , two German soldiers came out of next door . They had been setting them up and unknowingly my dad and his fellow sapper had been following them up the street. My dad said " he and his fellow sapper had no weapons so they ran like hell the opposite way from the Germans to the end of the street". When they reached the end of the street they peeped round to see the Germans had done the same and they where waving at them so my dad and his fellow sapper waved back .

While in Germany my dad and his fellow sappers where very hungry . They found a huge block of beef dripping stole some potatoes from a farm and decided they would all have some chips . It took ages as the dripping was so slow to melt and the chips where raw and horrid . They found out the large block of beef dripping was a block of candle wax .

While grabbing some sleep in the back of a wagon travelling somewhere in Germany he fell out ( one of many times ) onto the road he saw a motor bike speeding up to him . J. T. what are you doing on the road , it was a lad he knew from the next village to his at home . "Jump on the bike I will catch the wagon "

My mother told me he suffered badly from shell shock . It stopped in 1947 when my sister arrived sadly she past away a few months after birth and the shell shock returned . My mother said " he would grip the bed in his sleep start shaking and squeal out in his sleep ".
Then I came along in 1949 and he had no time for shell shock World War 3 had arrived .


and thats just a few