CHRISTMAS 1939

Philip Evans

In Christmas 1939,my Territorial Cavalry Regiment was stationed in Nottinghamshire during one of the coldest, winters in the 20th Century, known by those of us in the Army as "Brass Monkey' weather.

One of the many drawbacks of serving in a Cavalry unit was that the whole regiment could not go on leave at the same time.

Some men had to stay behind to see to the horses and cart away the ever present steaming dung.

During the second week of December, a notice went up that our Squadron would be divided into two groups, with each group having seven days Christmas leave.

The first lot were to leave on the 23rd of December and return on the 30th,and the second lot would depart the following week.

My name was in the second group.

On Christmas Morning we cleaned out the stables and fed and watered and blanketed the shivering horses. At mid-day we trooped to the Village Hall which was now our Mess Hut.

There, our unbelievably untalented cooks - who, to be fair, had joined the Regiment as Bandsmen - served us Turkey and Christmas pudding.

The turkeys were perfectly all right until our cooks had got hold of them. By the time they were cooked and sliced, they would have been useful in our saddlery unit in the event of a leather shortage. Fortunately we were all young and had good teeth.

I have forgotten what the vegetables were like, but when the duty officer came round and brusquely asked "any complaints?" the stony silence caused him to blush and beat a quick retreat.

The cooks maintained their reputation with the pudding. They were black unctuous balls of congealed dough and fruit, with mocking berryless sprigs of wilting holly bunged in their tops. But nasty looking as they were, they hardly merited the extremely coarse and vulgar descriptions given to them by some of the diners.

Later in the day, we fed the horses and stood with the poor creatures over frozen troughs, made their beds, settled them as comfortably as possible, and wheeled out the inevitable piles of dung. The evening we passed playing cards, gambling, drinking, sleeping or reading, each in the manner of our own choice.

Boxing Day was just as cheerless, particularly for Kip Humphries a member of our machine gun section.

Our Adjutant, seconded from the Royal Horse Artillery to train our officers in modern warfare - had two horses. His groom was on leave and Kip was instructed to take his place.

The Adjutant went hunting on Boxing Day, so Kip spent the afternoon grooming two horses, one of which was very wet and muddy

When the Adjutant came to inspect the grooming, he wore white gloves, which he smoothed over the horses to make sure they were clean.

Thus our officers and men were being prepared for battle against the German Panzer Divisions.

Eventually my great day arrived. The first lot returned from leave much to our delight and their sorrow.

During my week at home I was treated like a conquering hero.

I ate enough for 6 men, was petted by my mother, treated with a new respect by my friends not yet called up, and generally behaved as if I was going to take on the whole German Army single-handed.

Six weeks later I had crossed France and gone to the Middle East.

My next Christmas was spent under a hot African sun.