An extremely slow loading page here, but it does arrive and finally delivers up a 162-page memoir with the following title: THE WAR (I DID IT MY WAY) by 7674492 Private (Acting Sergeant) Dannatt When war broke out my Mum, who was a wise old bird, told me to go down to the Music Shop and buy copies of all the popular songs of the day. Then I had to learn to play them on the piano, off by heart. As Mum said, “When they find out you can play the piano, you’ll have a better war of it.” Ever the dutiful son, I did just that and never regretted it. I did have a better war of it! I began to be very worried about my parents as, near where they live, there were the Canvey Island oil refineries – perfect targets for the German bombers. I persuaded them to evacuate into the countryside at Banstead. One of the girls in the office lived there. In the next door house was a lady who had a spare room to let, so my parents moved in. It was a mistake. The lady was most peculiar, into all sorts of weird beliefs and practices. Her garden was overrun with weeds. Mum, trying to be helpful, pulled up all the stinging nettles and burnt them. It was quite the wrong thing to do, as they were an important item in the lady’s diet. Mum and Dad moved out immediately and stayed with my Uncle Fred, a butcher who lived in Bromley. He had a huge house with plenty of spare rooms now his children had left home. At the weekends I stayed there as well. One Sunday I cycled from Bromley to Banstead to visit my friends. In the evening I returned but, owing to the blackout and the tiny light that my bike lamp was allowed, I completely lost my way. I was riding along a well made-up road when a group of Air Force Military Police rushed up, dragged me from my bike and took me into a building. There had been a scare that German spies were descending by parachute, complete with bicycles. Somehow I had cycled into the middle of Biggin Hill aerodrome. How I had passed the guards at the entrance I could not imagine. Perhaps the road sloped and I had silently free-wheeled in the dark past a guard who was not paying attention at the time. I was asked to identify myself. I used to keep my identity card and money in my gas mask case so I opened it and they were not there. The guards became more certain they had got a German spy and became more nasty. However, in the bag I found my Dad’s income tax papers. I had picked up his gas mask by mistake. Gradually it began to sink in that I might not be a spy. No German spy would carry my Dad’s income tax papers. Eventually they phoned Uncle Fred and the matter was cleared up. I was loaded up on my bike again and escorted, under armed guard, back to the aerodrome entrance. They instructed me how to find the road to Bromley and I went on my way. But for my Dad’s income tax papers I could have been shot as a German spy. Soon after, perhaps to distract me from my sorrows at the loss of Phyllis, a girl friend who had turned me down flat, I received my call-up papers from the Army. I was to be in the Royal Army Pay Corps. My friend De Havilland said to me, “You are the sort of man who falls off Westminster Bridge into the Thames and comes up with your pockets full of fish”. Certainly the Pay Corps had its attractions. It was basically a non-combatant corps, although I suppose it would have to fight if the occasion demanded it. To my delight I was told that my firm, Lambert Brothers, intended to pay me full salary all the time that I was in the Army – half now and the other half when I returned to them after the war. I was told to report to Winchester Barracks. There, all of us men in our intake were given blankets and three “biscuits”. Army “biscuits” are bed mattresses – very hard and uncomfortable but better than the cold floor. We were marched to the great other ranks’ mess hall for a meal. It is a tradition of the Army that the Orderly Officer of the day has to come into the mess and call out “Any complaints”. On this occasion, to our surprise, the Orderly Officer was none other than David Niven, the famous film star. At the outbreak of the war he had come over from the States and joined the Kings’ Royal Rifles Corps, reaching the rank of captain. He was probably the only Orderly Officer in the whole history of the British Army who, when he had called out “Any complaints”, was greeted by all the men’s stopping eating and staring at him. Continued at book-length: http://www.memoriesofwar.org.uk/documents/N_Dannatt.pdf It's all rather unpolished - anecdote piled upon anecdote - and there's not much in the ways of booms or bangs, but it does ring true and is profusely illustrated with the author's personal photographs.
