Boys Coy RASC was a military school organised in platoons, Buller, Clayton, Connaught and Gloucester, and Initial for recruits. There were 150 boys and 25 adult permanent staff, and we occupied Mandora Hutments at the top end of Buller Barracks, across from Cambridge Military Hospital. Our year was split into Easter, Summer and Winter Terms, with holidays between and a mid-term holiday during, and our lessons were English, Maths, Science, Geography, History and Map Reading, foot and arms drill, and weapon training. We were one of 1 (Training) Battalion RASC‘s companies, the others being HQ, Horse Transport, Motor Transport, Potential Officer Cadets, Regimental Training, plus the RASC Staff Band, around 1,000 soldiers in all, mostly conscripts.

Our barrack rooms had a WW2 'Utility' radio receiver and in the evenings Radio Luxembourg, 208 metres, boomed out constantly. It was our only luxury. Corporal Quayle took us Recruits on foot and rifle drill and Cpl Mousy Durrant took us for PT and a bit of weapon training. Other instructors blurred in and out and after 3 months there was a Passing Out Parade when I was Best Recruit for L Squad and Boys Ken Barrowcliffe and Bill Pepper won the medal in J and K Squads respectively. My friends in Initial Platoon were Johnnie Ray and John Mobey. I was sent to Buller Platoon but stayed only Summer Term as a Drum & Trumpet band was set up in the September under Trumpet Major Sid Bottley, ex-RASC Staff Band, which I joined as bass drummer. So I moved to Clayton, the Band Platoon, and was promoted Boy Lance Corporal.

Trumpet calls controlled our waking moments, starting at 0615 hrs with Reveille, then Cookhouse at 0700, Quarter Call 0800, Markers 0810, Muster march-on 0815, Cookhouse 1200, Cookhouse 1700, Retreat 1830 and finally Lights Out at 2315 hrs. After lunch on Saturdays, and after attending church on Sundays, we were free to go out into town while during the week Boy NCOs could go out in the evening. At the end of Summer Term there was a Speech Day parade and a large number of parents attended. In 1954 Boy Company Sergeant Major 'Pearly' Chandler gained the Best Senior Regimental Boy award while I was given that for Best Junior Regimental Boy, and at 1955’s Speech Day I was awarded the Senior Education prize, a set of Hugo's Teach Yourself French books which I’ve still got but have never opened.

Although still only 16, along with a group of around twenty other Boys I started doing driver training in October 1954. We had continuation training in other things as well of course, education, weapons etc but not drill as we’d all got our No 1 Drill Certificate. Driving instructors corporals 'Cheeky' Cheek and Arthur Lambert taught us on two Tilley 15 cwt trucks, until Boy Borthwick drove one of them into a chasm. Then we had only one 15 cwt truck to learn to drive on. Every second Sunday the Company formed up by platoons and marched to St George's Garrison Church on Queen’s Avenue with the OC, Major Jack Hilder leading and me lost in the throng. Once the band was formed we were placed ahead of the OC, and I liked that. I liked it even more when, in late 1955, I was promoted to Boy Drum Major so marched at the head of the band.

Every Summer we went to the Isle of Wight for annual camp. Our tented Camp, situated near Sandown and Shanklin at Culver Cliff, was shared by three other Boys units, Boys Regiment RE, Boys Battalion RAOC and Boys Company ACC. In our First year Boys were paid 10 shillings a week, Second 12 shillings 6 pence and Third 15 shillings and I worked out during my second annual camp that the cost to the War Office for the fortnight in Boys wages alone was approx. £1,250. I wondered how we could afford such extravagance. In November 1954, for Corps Day, 140 RASC Boys performed a well-received PT display on the floor of the Albert Hall, for which we’d practised, according to a voice over loudspeakers, voluntarily in our own free time, which was something of a surprise to we ‘volunteers’.

My 2¼ years in Boys' Company RASC were slow in passing and ended in March 1956 when I graduated to 2 (Training) Battalion RASC at Willems Barracks, Aldershot. My Boys Service was a mainly enjoyable time and I learnt a lot that served me well in my 23 years as a 'man' soldier and my 7 years commissioned TA service working with Army Cadets. Some of the others I met while at Boys’ Coy were Bob Allison, Tommy Atkins, my sometime girlfriends Sheila Annand of Aldershot and Pat Forster, daughter of an ACC CSM, Pete Barber, Reg Baxter, Jock Beacock, Thomas E. Blench, Mick Brady, Grant Campbell, John Cockle, Titch Cook, Brian Corbell, Sergeant Dixie Dahlwood, Tom Dunkeley, Alex Elder, Titch Eley, Dave Fowler, Fred Grundy, Ginger Halstead, Titch Haresign, Henry Henriette, George Johnstone, Bert Keillor, Sergeant ‘Taffy’ Lewis, Les Long, John McFall, 2nd Lieutenants Maud, Hambly and Appleby, Danny Pratt, Ted Prescott, Smudge Smith, CSM ‘Farmer’ Smith, Joe Wade, John Wallace, Paddy Whiteside, Kenneth Wolstenhome, and Leslie de la Haye with whom I‘m still in touch.