A lovely bit of history Don. My dad worked at Players at 14. He failed Medicals to join up for the Air Force so didn't do National Service and British Rail wouldn't have him either. Poor dad. 😢
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Being a Post Office Messenger, to give them their proper title, was much like being in the army in that they were drilled and inspected each day. It had eased a lot by the time I joined, but you could still earn stripes 1,2 or 3. I'm not sure what you had to do to earn them. I never got any, but then I didn't get any in the army either. 🙄
Good morning Mr.D and look at you in your wonderful photo as a Telegraph lad 👮♂️!!! Your rhyme took me back in time and for the memories you stired up .... 🏆IT'S A CLASSIC!
What days they were. The thought of you and other boys racing along 🚴♀️🚴♂️, i can imagine how exciting it must have been. Thank you. 🐿💕
Thanks Don. That's a perfect poem and will bring back memories for many people of those uncertain times of World War 2. I'll type that one out and use it in our display of personal memories. I assume you wouldn't mind me doing that. Just let me know if you would prefer for it not to be included. Is that a photograph of you? It was a smart uniform which the user would be proud to wear I'm sure. Thank you for taking the time to write the poem. It is so meaningful. Do you have any more in the pipeline? Chrys
I leave all my posts unlocked so anybody can take them and hopefully enjoy them with others. The photo is of me, I was just 14 when it was taken. I worked as a messenger until I was called for National Service at 18 when I joined the Royal Engineers as a Sapper.
Sapper. 1 a soldier responsible for tasks such as building and repairing roads and bridges, laying and clearing mines, etc. 2 British a soldier in the Corps of Royal Engineers.
Hi Don, my interest has taken me on line to see the meaning of the word sapper. Its a word derived from a fren h word meaning shovel! Obviously we couldn't have won the war without them. Congratulations on doing your bit.
Oh Don. Lovely photo and story. I can remember someone saying that he was still very young and had the job of taking telegrams to the families of those who died in the war.
That’s right I started November 1945 on my14th birthday and such messages were still being received. The procedure was that we waited whilst the envelopes were opened and then asked whether there was a reply which we could accept. There were times when the recipient was so upset that they just closed the door unable to speak. Sounds strange now but back then death had been all around us during the war years, we had become hardened to it.There were no teenagers in those days, you went to bed a child and woke up an adult.
Lovely writing mate told the story of how he had started work in a mill in Huddersfield as an errand boy. After a while he was summoned to the front desk to take a packet to another mill. The commissionaire looked over the counter at the boy and said: “Eeeee, lad, get thi mam to send thee in long trousers tomorrow.”
I had plenty of work experience before my Post Office Messenger job. Paper round at 8 or 9, delivery boy for the local seed merchants at 11 and somewhere in between those times as butchers boy. It's no wonder I'm knackered! 😂
Do you know, I’d never thought about how telegrams got delivered. In the movies they’re always just there, you see people reading telegrams that have appeared in their hand as if by magic. Thank you for another brilliant rhyme and for enlightening me about telegrams.
So you were a sapper Master Po and i was a gunner and then a regimental scaley back and then a pathfinder or sneaky beaky and our son George was a para and then a member of the really lazy crowd,don't you just love these nicknames and the younger generation in the forces have some that are unrepeatable on this platform. x
I signed up for 9 yrs in the colours and 3 in the reserves but after 7 i was able to hand in my resignation as new contracts were introduced and i had become bored but one still had to do the 3 on reserve and i remember being given an open train warrant to travel where i might be required in the event of conflict,unfortunately it was more likely to be used on British Rail as opposed to the Orient express.
Once I'd completed my six week intensive training they stuck a pen in my hand and put me behind a desk in the Orderly Room, I spent the rest of my life behind a desk!
I think the orderly room was normal located in the regiments HQ building nand adjacent to the adjutants office,he was always a Captain and generally responsible for admin of the regiment,production of part 1 and part 2 orders of the day and more importantly Pay.
Somehow,without being demeaning i always imagined you with a pen as opposed to a rifle in your hand, and i would have held you responsible for docking my pay if i lost some kit lol.
I'll have you know that I had my marksman badge (and the few extra pennies per day that went with it) . Frequent visits were made to the Fingringhoe Ranges, whose name always gave us a smile and was often miss-spelt. I would have defended my pen, and my lowly position (which came with certain privileges), to the very end.
A bit before my time but I love the history. Hard to believe how technology has move forward all the things the kids have today.
I used to get a Rupert Bear annual for Christmas with a suger mice couple of other thing and always a orange and still as excited then as children are today.
See how you've made my mind wonder. Lovely photo Don
That brought back memories Don, my first boyfriend was a Post Office Messenger, he used to deliver the telegrams....... boy that was many years back I'd forgotten all about it till I read your post.
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