Sergeant Jim Jeffrery

Yes I was with the Territorial Army in September 1939 and eventually was drafted in with the first call up in October 1939 and had 8, 9 weeks of training in Leapale Hill Drill Hall but the memories of Sandfield Terrace Drill Hall are of being issued with four army blankets and told to sleep on the floor. The floor was mighty cold and mighty hard but I soon learnt that if you folded two of the blankets several times and made them into a kind of a mattress that was much warmer than having the four on the top of you. Also I remember from Sandfield we had our mess room down in the cattle market which was half a mile away. We used to march down there to the meals and I’m afraid that some of the songs which were sung with the march were a little bit near the knuckle and the residents came along to the drill hall and complained. We were all told no more of the vulgar songs, so the next day we were lined up to go down to the meals, of course there is always the bright spark among us who led us off singing 'Onward Christian Soldiers' so off we went to the cattle market then.