SHORE LEAVE. Early 1944

We had lived on this free french fishing vessel for over six months minding our own business and doing, in the main, what we were told. I think we had all become a bit barmy. There was Lofty, who seemed to be affected by the full moon, Hoppy, who always considered himself to be the best fighter in the mobile unit. Brommy, who was girl crazy (to put it politely) & his hobby, was putting his clenched fist through pub plate glass windows when they wouldn't serve him another pint. Then Scouse & Geordie, who, no matter where they were always pulled the knife out of their seaboot & thought it great fun to throw it at any one at any time, just missing ones ear & then boasting about their skill.

We had just pulled into a jetty on the far side of Poole Harbour & there was quite a bit of sea mist about, however as we hadn't had a spell of leave or the taste of a big town for some months & we were only a few miles from Bournemouth (where the matelots had to go around in pairs for fear of being raped by the local girls), we decided we should go ashore. Unfortunately, by now quite a fog had developed & all the trotboats to the Poole jetty had been withdrawn. Alongside us was a landing craft tank & we noticed that the skipper had a very nice rowboat on the welldeck & it was not beyond our capabilities to commandeer it.

We set out in our rowboat & as it was only designed to carry four we had to sit round the gunwales & as a consequence all got wet bottoms to start with. It was rather difficult for us to row the thing; firstly, it was not far by trotboat, but a very long haul rowing. We got even wetter when we had to change oarsmen, the journey was made even longer when you consider that it was a winters night, thick fog, & during wartime nobody hung out landing lights to let one know where one was. We considered that we might be pre-empting the called for invasion of France (or second front as it was known to the Communists) by a couple of years, but I don't think Jerry would have been too frightened by six matelots in their tiddly suits.

By luck more than judgement we hit a beach, jettisoned the rowing boat, which by now was half full of seawater & as we had been bailing it out with our caps, I suppose you could say we were a wet lot. Before setting out we decided to see how much cash we had amongst the six of us & to our amazement we possessed one shilling & fourpence (about 6p grandson). We considered this an ample sum to have a good night ashore, but we didn't have enough for the train fare from Poole to Bournemouth for one let alone six. Still, that was no problem, we picked up the railway lines shortly afterwards & with a couple of miles walk found ourselves on the platform at Poole. The train journey was uneventful, but there was a problem at the ticket gate, as four ten feet tall mi We'd had a good night, a few further things happened, which I don't think I'll mention as I'd be giving away military secrets which the authorities have been trying to find out 'who done it' for years.

Back on the fishing vessel at three o'clock in the morning, we always kept the coke stove glowing red hot to keep us warm in our sleeping cabin, which was about 8 x 12 feet in size. It must have been a full moon, although, with the fog, I hadn't seen it, because Lofty had another turn, he was now punching the deckhead & bulkhead trying to let more air in, he obviously thought opening the hatch was too difficult. He finally finished up peeing all over the red-hot stove, & the smell was atrocious, so we opened the hatch for him. We all got our heads down & crashed our Swedes, but not Lofty, who went through his normal 'happy matelot routine', shaking Hoppy on the top bunk, & asking him "wanna have a pee", "want to go in a raffle for a battleship", "get yer head down Lofty" we all moaned.