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This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Reading on behalf of Albert Bargeman and has been added to the site with his permission. Albert Bargeman fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I volunteered at the beginning of the war, but didn’t get called up until I was 20. I refused to go into the army, and I told them I’d desert if I did. The marine officer’s response was to say “Okay, we’ll put you in the Navy”, which turned out to be the Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships. He got me a special licence to get married instead of the banns, which had to be called a good week ahead. We chatted to the Rev. Woods at Christchurch and he said he’d sort it out. My wife was 16 when we married. So due to the Reverend, we got married on the Saturday, and I joined the Navy on Monday, in 1940.

For a while we were stationed at Avonmouth, where a lot of rations were coming in. One of my memories was the time a Merchant ship came in carrying a load of butter in 56lb packs. One fell of the top of the pile, there were three lads down there in two minutes, and after another two minutes, the pack was gone.

Came home on leave from Avonmouth, made a cake, and used all those rations.

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