Lance-Corporal Robert J. I was born in Croydon in Surrey on 3 July Before the First World War had ended in , my family returned to Mortlake in Surrey, where my mother's family lived. My father had a job as a Stoker Engineer and he had served in the Royal Navy from to Also in Richmond was the Poppy Factory. Our schoolteachers were also War Veterans and so the War was all around us as children.
As we grew older and learnt to read and write, we learnt more about the War. They and others would tell us that the War was not over in Germany because they would not forget and forgive. Men were out of work, so there was little money to go round.
There was the Welfare State for handouts. The League of Nations was formed but that did not stop the men stating that the War was far from over.
We read that things were not much better in Germany. There was food shortages and no work. We also heard of Hitler and the Nazi Party. In , when Hitler won the Election and became Chancellor, those men that had spoken about the next War, said that it had already started.
People called them crazy. In Hitler, got the German people back to work, they now had bread on their table. I put my age down as 18 years old, as I had started shaving so I had no problem in joining the Territorial Army, men from the War also had joined up in the Territorial Army. My first summer camp was at Camberley in Surrey with the Territorial Army. We learnt a lot. On returning home, after the camp, Mondays and Thursdays were training nights.
