Also, as well as avoiding inspections by sleeping in the postroom, I was not subjected to the sort of pranks others had to suffer, like returning to the hut after an evening out to find one’s bed hanging from the ceiling beams. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, a bed with sleeping occupant would be quietly carried through the door and left outside. Such a laugh!These tricks, though annoying at the time, were always without malice, and paradoxically usually strengthened friendships.

This comradeship is what I remember most of all about National Service. Always it was possible to find a pal for a game of football or a cuppa in the NAAFI or simply a natter on a barrack room bed. Also among my pleasant memories are the two variety concerts I helped to produce for the barracks. National Servicemen and regulars, private soldiers and officers worked together to put on the two shows. I also played in the depot snooker and cricket teams, and was once chosen for the rugby team. But after a 60-odd points defeat by the REME at Honiton I wasn’t selected again

One of my mates was Dick Copp, and often we would spend an evening in Exeter together. Dick was an inveterate practical joker, and on one occasion as we passed the guardroom in our civvy clothes Dick looked at the young recruit on duty, and in his poshest voice demanded: “Don’t you usually salute when you see an officer, soldier?” The poor squaddie replied “sorry sir” and gave Pte Copp his best army salute.

Another of my friends was Eric Watts, who worked in the Training Company office. We used to cycle down to the youth club at Budleigh Salterton where we both found girlfriends. Dick Shorland, the orderly room WO2 used to say: “Suppose you and Watts were out with those maids from Budleigh again last night, Davis. You’re just a couple of dirty old rams.”

Though all these memories have survived 50 years, it is the music of the day that stirs the strongest emotions. I remember so well the singers and the songs that would blare from Radio Luxembourg on wireless sets that could be found in almost every barrack room — Edmund Hockridge, Doris Day, Tony Bennett, Lita Rosa. And the music from Kismet, the hit-show of the decade, which was based on the Polovtsian Dances. I never hear those Borodin tunes without being transported back into the days of khaki and blanco and marching feet.

And I remember the barrack dances in the gymnasium to which nurses from the local hospital were invited. I can’t recall the names or faces of any of the girls I danced with there. But I can still see the notices on the walls which ordered: No jitterbugging!