Granddad Based on a true story, by Charles Roberts

          “If you join up promise that you’ll keep your head down won’t you.”

          “Don’t worry about me love.  There’s a whole bunch of us going in together.  We’ll take of each other.”

          And so it was that Tommy found himself down at the police station that day with all his mates.  They arrived there before time and stood outside in a line which stretched for twenty yards or more, all waiting to sign on and fight for King and country.  A sergeant came out of the police station and called for quiet, he looked right smart in his greeny brown uniform with three white stripes on his arms.  “Listen up,” he called again, don’t ask to be a driver, everyone wants to be a driver and we have enough drivers to fill a train, so don’t ask to be a driver.”

          He went back in and the que started to move, Tommy was about half way in the line and chatted to his mate Alf while they waited and moved forward slowly.  It took Tommy about half an hour to get into the police station and he saw that the sergeant who had come out and told them not to ask to be a driver was sat behind a large table which was full of papers.

          Eventually it came to Tommy’s turn, “Name,” asked the sergeant.

          “Tommy Stocks,” he replied.

          “Age.”

          “Twenty four,” Tommy said.

          “Are you married?” the sergeant asked.

          “Aye.” Tommy answered a bit surprised.

          “What’s your occupation?”

          “French polisher,” said Tommy.  The sergeant sat back in his chair and looked at Tommy, then started writing something down.

          “Driver.” Said the sergeant, “I’ll send you off to be a driver lad.”

          “I thought that you’d said, outside, that you didn’t want drivers?”

          “That I did lad, but I can take one or two, and you are one.  Here.”

          With that he handed Tommy a paper which told him where and when to report for his training.  He was trained as an ambulance driver, ferrying the wounded from the forward field hospitals to the main hospital in the rear.  One day he had just delivered a couple of injured men to the hospital and stopped in a small town in the south of Belgium and was leaning on his ambulance having a quick fag when he saw a young officer run out of a building and look around him.

          “You there,” he called, “yes you by that ambulance, can you drive?”

          “Yes sir,” Tommy replied, “this is my ambulance.”

          “Right, get into that car and take me to battalion headquarters as quickly as possible.”

          “But what about my ambulance sir?”

          “Someone else can take that.  Now quickly man and drive as fast as you can.”  With that Tommy became a staff car driver at battalion headquarters, and because he was a tea totaller, every time someone wanted a driver to go to the nearest town for a drinking session they always asked for Tommy.