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This story has been submitted by Helen Hughes of the People's War team in Wales on behalf of Sid Shorten, and is added to the site with his permission.

CHESTER le STREET camp 9
Monday January 13, 1941 to Saturday February 8th 1941

The town was a bit bigger than Prudhoe on the main A1 road about 12 miles south of Newcastle; my billet was above a barber's shop in the main street. The cooking instruction was in the canteen of Horner鈥檚 sweet factory, the field cooking was in the grounds of a large house on the outskirts, best remembered for the depth of mud we stood in to cook. I made 16 trips back to Prudhoe in the time there. On one occasion I was stopped by a Red Cap because I was not wearing gaiters I pointed out I had scrubbed them after field cooking but he still booked me. When I returned to Prudhoe I had to report to the Company Office, I saw Sgt. Major Roberts and explained what had happened and he said forget it. Sgt. Major Roberts never changed from being a fine person to know; even some years later when he became an Adjutant Captain he was always approachable. I returned to Prudhoe on the 8th.February.

PRUDHOE camp 10
Saturday February 8 to Friday March 28, 1941

I was now a full time cook, I got my next leave at the end of February so Jean and I travelled to Norwich for her to meet my family and see the City for the first time. The time flew by with seeing family and friends and going to the various places in the City. The return journey was awful a snow storm broke out and by the time we reached Durham the cutting we were going through became blocked and we were stuck until a snow plough got through to clear the lines. Several members of the Company returned to marry local girls; my next leave was likely to be at the beginning of May so Jean planned for Monday May 12th 1941 to be our wedding day. The Company鈥檚 next move was to Oxfordshire.

CHIPPING NORTON camp 11
Friday March 28, to Tuesday July 22, 1941

A small country town, the Company were spread around the town but the cooking was done in the Church Hall which had been equipped with army cooking gear, the cooking staff was billeted in the cemetery chapel. With the hot weather the rooms were too hot for sleeping on some nights and several men went outside and slept among the gravestones. The Vicar was very friendly and loaned us rackets to play tennis on his rectory tennis court. The unit was occupied on various jobs in the area and on further training; we went on an 8 day manoeuvre to the southwest to Devon and a 6 day one to mid Wales, which I now know was the Brecon Beacons battle area. About 10 days before my next leave was due I had an accident with a bread slicer losing the tip of my first finger and cutting the next two; the M.O. treated me at the local hospital stitching the two cut fingers and bandaging the first finger. This put my leave in doubt until three days before it was due when the stitches came out and the M.O. gave me the OK for leave.
I arrived in Prudhoe with my arm in a sling on the Saturday with the wedding all arranged for Monday, on the Sunday I had to go to Wylam to sleep at Aunt Hilda鈥檚, she was to travel to Hexham with me to show me where the registry office was. She enjoyed taking over, it was her who told Jean's parents to let us go ahead and marry, her words were 鈥渢hey might as well have a little pleasure it probably won鈥檛 last鈥�. Everything went well; the neighbour was a pastry cook in town and had made a very nice wedding cake as a present. The rest of the week was spent going round to see friends and relations. After that it was back to camp for the same daily routine until our next move came in convoy to Hemel Hempstead.

HEMEL HEMPSTEAD camp 12
Tuesday July 22 to Thursday July 31, 1941

The Company was billeted about a mile out of town in a disused fair ground, this was a temporary stop- over before moving on to our next base for new bridge building instruction at Wallingford.

WALLINGFORD, Berkshire. camp 13
Thursday July 31 to Saturday August 16,1941

This was our second visit; the new Bailey bridge had come into being and was scheduled to become the standard bridge for all allied forces, it was certainly a big advance on previous equipment. I saw little of the bridge building and no falling in the Thames. On two occasions I was able to get a day pass and hitch-hiked to Sunbury and found where Jean's Aunt & Uncle lived; I had not met them before but I was welcomed as one of the family, Jean was always Aunt Nell鈥檚 favourite niece and we kept in contact with them all their lives. Later I was detailed to go with a driver and a 15 cwt. Truck to our next location and set up the cookhouse a day ahead of the Company move to Chippenham.

CHIPPENHAM camp 14
Saturday August 16 to Sunday October 19, 1941

Chippenham is a small village about 5 miles along the A11 Newmarket to Norwich road. The whole Company were there to work on the construction of a large military camp at the nearby airfield. We were billeted in a completed section; the cooking facilities were excellent, equipped with all new Aldershot ovens and everything else was new. A few days before we were to go on a very large manoeuvre I had a tray of rice tip as I was getting it out of the oven, some went over my foot and scalded it. It was decided that I should still go on the manoeuvre in to Somerset but I had to wear gym shoes because of the bandages a size 9 on one foot and a 13 on the other. We found out the train times from Thetford to Norwich so on my first day off I got a lift to Thetford and the train home I returned with my bicycle so I was not dependent on lifts to Thetford, I could bike it in less than an hour. Several of us had the same idea so there was often company on the road. This airbase eventually became the American airbase of Lakenheath. We left there in convoy to Claydon in Suffolk.

CLAYDON camp 15
Sunday October 19 to Tuesday November 11, 1941
This village is about 8 miles north of Ipswich along the A140 towards Norwich; we were billeted in a disused workhouse, it was said it had been visited by Charles Dickens when he was writing his books; we were sure some of the older rats that ran around at night must have seen him. As before the unit was on military camp building. It was too far to bike into Norwich but we were able to hitch a lift there several times. While at Claydon we had to go through a gas chamber for experience, this was DM gas and while inside we had to ease the gas mask to get a whiff of the gas, later in the day most of us had a headache and our gums ached. The time to move came again to Mettingham.

METTINGHAM camp 16
Tuesday November 11 to Sunday November 16, 1941
This was a tiny village about 3 miles from Bungay. We were crowded in a number of Nissen huts in what was a sea of mud. The cooking facilities were basic the whole place looked derelict; nobody seemed to know why we were there and everybody was mighty pleased when the next move came.

WOODBRIDGE camp 17
Sunday November 16 to Tuesday December 30, 1941
A small town 6 miles from Ipswich on the A12 Lowestoft road; we were billeted in a large house about a mile from town at Melton Grange, the grounds were quite large and away from the house some other buildings were used for storing old H.E. and landmines. The unit was working on various jobs in the area; one job was to dispose of 2 cwt. of sweating gelignite. This was done on a long bed of dry straw lit down wind so it burned slowly and well away from anything else. This was a comfortable billet and I was still with HQ platoon. My next leave came up in the first week of December. On returning to Ipswich station, there were four of us, we found there was no transport to take us back to camp so we decided to walk back. We arrived in the early hours of the morning to find just a rear party there the others were on a manoeuvre with the Home guard and they had forgotten we were due back. The weather turned very cold over Christmas and by the end of the month there was snow and sharp frost when we were told our next move was due. Once again I went with the advance party to set up the cookhouse; my truck took the lead at the outskirts of Norwich so that I could guide them round the best way to the Fakenham road and on to Haveringland.

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