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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Ken Hoult, and has been added to the site with the author’s permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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The day war broke out-that’s quite a good way to start things that, at the time, were serious, but now, can be laughed about.

When Neville Chamberlain was declaring war, I was building air raid shelters and first aid posts in various villages in Derbyshire. In the evening, after going to church, I took my sweetheart home amid the great activity of fixing blackouts. While this work was going on, the next-door neighbour came, and the first thing he said was, “PUT THAT FIRE OUT!! Enemy planes will see it!” This got the war off to a good start.

HELLO, HELLO, HELLO.

In 1943, we were stationed at the Royal Engineers’ depot at Long Marston, near Stratford-upon-Avon. It is a village that had no bus services, but did have a railway station. My parents sent me my bicycle so that I could get to the wonderful Cotswold villages of Broadway, Honeythorne etc. To get into Stratford, we could either use the army transport that had been provided, or we could catch the train.

One night in the autumn, I had been out to one of the villages by bicycle. I was returning to camp in the dark, when I was stopped by the village policeman. “Hello, hello, hello etc……….” He’d stopped me because my bike was showing too much light. Yes, for displaying a light some two inches in diameter, I had been summoned for a breach of the blackout regulations. The summons was duly received at company H.Q. I was called into the office and taken before the C.O. who could not stop laughing. The final outcome was that the summons was returned to the Magistrates’ Court saying, “L/cp Hoult has been posted overseas.” I only wish that a copy of the summons had been kept because that was one for the archives.

YOU CAN'T BORROW A STEAMROLLER?

Whilst at Long Marston, I was loaned out to construct a sewage works at an ammunition depot at Kineton, because the village system was being overloaded. As it was being completed, we had to construct a road for access. The Colonel in charge was very pleased with the work, but said the road required rolling. Silly fool me; I said, “What about the steam roller at Long Marston?” The rest is unbelievable; in no time at all, the Colonel and I were transported to Long Marston. As far as I’m aware, no one was asked if we could borrow it. We watered and fired it, and the next thing, with the colonel at the wheel, we were coming out of the gates of the camp with the guard at salute. It’s about ten miles from Kineton to Long Marston. It was much later in my life that I was reminded of the incident, when I was working for Derbyshire County Council. An architect, Percy Tilley, was an Officer in the Royal Engineers who was at the Kineton Depot at the time. He knew of the incident, but none of the collaborators.

PR-BR

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