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Wartime memories of a Policeman in Bedford Part Two — Call-up into the Royal Artillery and posted to Cairo. Return to Policing in Bedford.

Part two of an oral history interview with Mr. Arthur Thomas ‘Tom’ Clarke conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum

“In 1942 I was called up into the Royal Artillery. When my eldest son was born I was kept over here until after my eldest son was born. From there I went to Cairo and I was with what is known as ‘Specialists’. It’s no good me trying to explain what their duties were in the Gunners, in the Artillery. There were about 60 of us going out on the troop ship and we manned the guns, we didn’t anything extra to do, we were freelance then. When we got to Cairo we were trade tested, to make sure that we were efficient with our jobs that we were to do before going up to Regiments actually in the Line. Of those 63 there was only one that passed, yours truly. The rest had all to be put on a revision course. That was Almaza in Cairo. I eventually finished up running three Information Rooms, one in Almaza, one down at the Al Gizera Club and another in one of the RAF Stations. This was Base Depot, there were about 8,000 in the Base and well, they kicked me out into the Cook House. Mind you, you were there to serve meals the rest of the time was your own, wandering around.

Now I found with a big Base like that they have lots of various things and they had what was termed an ‘Information Room’. Oh, quite a fair size and it was full of maps where they interpreted what was happening in the war onto maps. So that to be quite honest a lot of people couldn’t understand what was spoken about but they could see it on maps and they got a better picture of it. Anyhow, I went there two or three days and eventually the Captain in Charge came up to me and he said, ‘Eh, you’re interested in this place, aren’t you? I’ve seen you the last two or three days.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘How would you like to work here?’ ‘I would love it!’ ‘Where are you now?’ ‘Cook House.’ ‘Alright, come here nine o’clock tomorrow morning!’ I stayed there until VE Day. And you might not know it, our Police went into the Army on a ‘B’ category, that was what had been Reserve groups before but they were doing away with them temporarily for the big push. Now, VE Day came and ‘B’ Releases and I heard that I was going to be posted to the Army Educational Corp! Yuk! Which meant promotion to Sergeant and three years in the Army Educational Corp, I didn’t want to spend three bloody years out in Cairo! So I went to the Adjutant’s Office and saw him, I said, ‘I know I can’t decline a posting’ incidentally I had got two stripes at the time and I said, ‘But what the situation if I decline a stripe, I don’t want to be made a Sergeant?’ ‘Sit your bloody self down over there.’ He sent the Battery Runner off and about 10 minutes later he came, he called me up to the office, he said, ‘That’s what you bloody well want isn’t it Bombardier? Your ‘B’ Release!’ Well within a week I was on my way home! And later on when I was in the Police I was in an Information Room there. It was still the old Borough and yes much the same. We hadn’t lost, I don’t think we actually lost any casualties. We did lose a couple, one was the fact that his sight had gone and I forget what the other one was, but no war casualties.

There were two Points. Oh there were probably three, two hours on, two hours off. There was, not every day, there was one at St.Peter’s, one at Silver Street and St.Paul’s Square north. St.Paul’s Square north was only Saturdays, Market Day. What actually happened a sheep got away, I’m not sure whether it wasn’t from Mayes Yard, that’s just at the side of the Corn Exchange. I was on Duty and of course you can’t just stand there and do sweet Fanny Adams so I had to go and tried to catch the sheep. Of course we didn’t have, because earlier on they had runaway horses which was quite common.�

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